Kenyan Government Sh225b plan to improve internet speeds across the country
Kenyans will soon be able to have access to fast internet speeds thanks to a new initiative by the Kenyan government to roll out a Sh225b plan to improve Internet speeds across the country.
The government will give open tenders for the rolling out of community broadband projects in two counties first, and also for the establishment of 46 e-Resource Centres in Kenya National Library Services facilities across the country.
Under this project the country is targeting to to have national minimum speeds of 5Mbps (megabits per second) by 2017 and by 2030 it wants to be at 500Mbps per second.
According to ICT Principal Secretary Joseph Tiampati, for Kenya to realise its growth targets, we require funding of $2.5 billion which is equivalent to Sh224.7 billion.
”This amount that is beyond any single organisation and only realisable through contributions from many stakeholders over a period of time” he said.
This new plan by the government is good news to internet subscribers in the country which has now stands at 13.1 million subscribers up from 11.9 million in the previous quarter according to a recent report by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CAK).
The report further said that the number of broadband subscriptions also increased marginally by 2.6 percent to reach 1,435,267 subscriptions up from 1,398,395 subscriptions registered in the previous quarter.
The estimated number of Internet users is said to have gone up by 11 percent to reach 21.2 million up from 19.1 million estimated during the previous quarter.
Source: Standard Business