Safaricom launches managed SD-WAN as businesses juggle more connections, branches and cloud apps
Safaricom has today launched its SD-WAN offering which gives Kenyan businesses a new way to manage the growing number of connections supporting their branches, offices and cloud applications.
Instead of treating fibre, internet, MPLS and 4G/5G links as separate circuits, Safaricom is packaging Huawei-powered SD-WAN as a managed service that places a central software layer over those connections. The company is targeting businesses with multiple locations that need better control over application traffic, network availability and the cost of maintaining enterprise infrastructure.
The proposition arrives as Kenya’s connectivity market becomes more varied. Fixed internet subscriptions reached 2.84 million by June 2026, up 32.4% year on year, while fibre connections reached 1.57 million. Satellite and wireless services are adding alternatives alongside the much larger terrestrial broadband market. Starlink alone had 27,616 Kenyan subscriptions by June, although capacity constraints were already putting prospective customers in eight counties on waiting lists.
For a business operating one office, having several connectivity options may simply mean having a choice of provider. For a bank, retailer, hospital, manufacturer or distributor operating dozens or hundreds of sites, the problem is different. Each branch can have its own links, routers, security policies and application requirements, while the business still expects payment systems, enterprise applications, cloud services and communications to remain available when one connection develops a problem.
Why enterprise networks are becoming harder to manage
Safaricom’s launch presentation framed the enterprise WAN around three problems: resilience, complexity and cost. The company argues that businesses now have more sites, more connectivity types and more applications to manage, while critical workloads can suffer when traffic follows a route that is technically available but unsuitable for the application using it.
That problem is closely connected to the way Kenya’s digital infrastructure is developing. The country is expanding fibre networks, international bandwidth, data centres and cross-border routes at the same time that businesses are adopting cloud services and mobile connectivity. Digital Realty’s NBO2 data centre in Nairobi, for example, was launched as infrastructure for cloud providers, financial institutions, enterprises and internet service providers, adding another layer to the ecosystem linking submarine cables, terrestrial networks, data centres and cloud platforms.
The result is a business network that can extend far beyond the traditional branch-to-headquarters model. An employee in a regional branch might access an ERP system hosted in a private data centre, use Microsoft 365 through the public internet, connect to a video meeting and process a customer transaction within the same hour. Sending all of that traffic through one path can create unnecessary congestion, while maintaining separate networks for every application creates another management problem.
What Safaricom is actually launching
Safaricom’s answer is a managed SD-WAN service powered by Huawei. SD-WAN, or software-defined wide-area networking, acts as a control layer over the connections a business already has or chooses to deploy.
The underlying links remain separate. Fibre remains fibre, MPLS remains MPLS, and a 5G connection remains a mobile connection. What changes is the way the business can manage those paths. Safaricom’s platform can apply policies according to application type, business priority, bandwidth, latency, packet loss, jitter, link availability and security requirements.
In practical terms, that means an IT team can define which applications should receive priority and which connections should carry them. A business could, for example, give an ERP application priority over general web browsing, while routing other traffic through a different available link. The aim is to make network decisions based on the needs of the application rather than simply sending everything through whichever circuit has traditionally been designated as primary.
This is also where the managed-service proposition becomes important. Safaricom is supplying and managing the SD-WAN equipment as part of a recurring service rather than requiring customers to make the full hardware investment upfront. Richard Muthua, Safaricom Business’ Cloud, IoT & Security Lead, said some enterprise SD-WAN deployments can involve equipment costs running into KSh10 million to KSh15 million, making capital expenditure a barrier for some organisations.
Tom, Safaricom Business’ Vertical Lead for Enterprise Sales, said customer feedback had specifically focused on reliability, security, affordability and the desire for a managed service. Safaricom plans to follow the launch with customer assessments so its teams can map the service to individual branch, hub, connectivity and security requirements.
From backup links to active network capacity
One of the more important changes in the Safaricom proposition is how it treats secondary connections.
A conventional branch can have a primary connection and a backup connection that remains largely idle until the first one fails. The business pays for both, but much of the available capacity on the second link can remain unused.
Safaricom’s SD-WAN proposition is designed to use multiple links at the same time, with traffic distributed according to network conditions and application policies. If one connection becomes unavailable or its performance deteriorates, traffic can be redirected to another available path.
That does not mean every application will experience a completely interruption-free transition in every network failure. It means the platform can continuously evaluate the available paths and make routing decisions instead of waiting for an IT administrator to intervene.
Huawei’s presentation at the launch demonstrated this with scenarios involving 5G, MPLS and internet connectivity. The system can apply different policies to different categories of traffic, allowing a business to decide which applications should receive the most appropriate route.
This approach also fits a wider infrastructure picture in Kenya. The national network is itself gaining additional routes and capacity, while fibre, wireless and satellite services provide businesses with more possible ways to connect locations. National backbone and cross-border infrastructure plans under the World Bank-backed Kenya Digital Economy Acceleration Project also place emphasis on redundancy.
Faster branch deployment and centralised control
Safaricom and Huawei are also presenting SD-WAN as a way to reduce the amount of manual work involved in opening and managing branches.
In a demonstration comparing a traditional WAN deployment with SD-WAN across 200 sites, Huawei presented a calculation of 238 person-days for the traditional model against 16 person-days for SD-WAN. The figures came from the vendor’s presentation and included planning, demonstration, branch configuration and deployment.
The proposed workflow relies on central orchestration. Rather than configuring each branch device individually, network policies can be prepared centrally and distributed to sites through zero-touch provisioning. Huawei’s presentation put branch configuration preparation at about three minutes and deployment at about 30 minutes per site, again as figures from its demonstration rather than a universal deployment guarantee.
The service also supports what Safaricom calls “ready mobility”. A business opening a new location can use LTE or 5G where available while waiting for a fixed connection, then introduce fibre or another terrestrial connection later. This could be useful for temporary sites, rapidly expanding retail networks or branches in locations where fixed connectivity takes longer to provision.
The underlying idea is simple: the business should be able to add or change connectivity without redesigning its entire WAN every time a new site opens.
What businesses will pay for the service
Safaricom has structured the service around branch and hub packages with 12-, 24- and 36-month terms. The prices presented at launch are VAT-inclusive, while connectivity itself is charged separately.
The entry-level Basic Branch package costs KSh12,000 per month on a 12-month term, KSh7,800 on a 24-month term and KSh6,400 on a 36-month term. Basic Hub starts at KSh52,100 per month for 12 months, falling to KSh29,900 on a 24-month term and KSh22,500 on a 36-month term.
Other branch packages range from Basic+ and Standard to Standard+, while hub options include additional security capabilities. The NGFW Hub package, which includes next-generation firewall capabilities, is priced at KSh269,600 per month for 12 months, KSh149,400 for 24 months and KSh109,700 for 36 months.
Those figures should not be interpreted as the complete cost of a business’s network because the underlying connectivity is separate. The pricing instead illustrates the commercial model Safaricom is pursuing: customers pay a recurring service fee for the SD-WAN layer and can select the connectivity that fits their sites.
MPLS remains part of the picture
One important clarification from the launch is that Safaricom is not positioning SD-WAN as a replacement for MPLS.
During the customer panel, a technology executive from the National Cereals and Produce Board asked how quickly an existing MPLS network could be migrated to SD-WAN. Safaricom’s response was that SD-WAN can complement MPLS, with the existing connection remaining part of a broader multi-link configuration where appropriate.
That distinction matters because MPLS still has a role in enterprise networking, particularly where organisations require controlled private connectivity between sites. SD-WAN provides another layer for managing that connectivity alongside internet, fibre, LTE/5G or other available links.
The more accurate description, therefore, is that SD-WAN abstracts the complexity of the underlying WAN rather than eliminating the underlying WAN technologies.
Security, interoperability and data sovereignty
Security is built into the Safaricom proposition at different levels depending on the package. The service can incorporate security controls, while higher-tier packages add threat protection and next-generation firewall capabilities. Safaricom also discussed integration with SOC, MDM and SASE services.
Richard said the SD-WAN service uses 256-bit encryption, while Huawei’s Faith Mueni said deployments can incorporate VPN/IPsec and security functions at the router or firewall layer. Both speakers were careful to distinguish networking security from a complete cybersecurity architecture. A business still needs broader controls where its risk profile requires them.
Huawei also said its SD-WAN equipment can interoperate with equipment from vendors such as Cisco and Fortinet and supports more than 6,000 APIs for integration. Those are Huawei’s stated capabilities and should be assessed against the specific architecture and equipment a customer already operates.
Data sovereignty also came up during the customer discussion. Safaricom said the SD-WAN management platform is orchestrated locally through its cloud and data-centre infrastructure, with network management information kept within its local environment. That does not mean every piece of customer data automatically remains in Kenya. Customer traffic can still travel to external services or across borders where the business’s architecture requires it, so compliance with Kenya’s data-protection requirements remains dependent on how the service is configured and used.
Why the launch fits Kenya’s wider infrastructure build-out
The Safaricom launch makes more sense when placed alongside the infrastructure changes taking place around it.
Kenya’s fixed broadband base is expanding, fibre remains the dominant access technology, mobile networks are moving toward 4G and 5G, satellite has established a sizeable niche, and data-centre capacity in Nairobi is expanding. At the same time, businesses are putting more applications in cloud environments and operating across wider geographic footprints.
Safaricom has also been preparing the market for this proposition. Its earlier enterprise connectivity portfolio included dedicated internet, fibre, 4G/5G fixed wireless and emerging SD-WAN and branch interconnectivity services. The October launch therefore gives a more defined commercial structure to a product direction that had already appeared in its enterprise connectivity strategy.
The competitive landscape is moving in a similar direction. Fibre operators, data-centre companies, cloud providers and regional infrastructure groups are combining connectivity with cloud, security, data-centre and managed services. For customers, the question is becoming more about how all of their infrastructure works together.
That is the space Safaricom is entering with its SD-WAN proposition. The company is taking a collection of connectivity options that businesses already use, adding a central software-defined control layer, and offering to manage that environment for a recurring fee. For a multi-site business, the value will ultimately depend on whether that arrangement reduces operational complexity, makes better use of paid-for capacity and keeps critical applications reachable when individual connections encounter problems.
In that sense, the launch is about more than adding another enterprise connectivity product to Safaricom’s portfolio. It is an attempt to make the WAN itself a managed business service, with the network underneath it able to change as the company’s branches, applications and connectivity requirements change.
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