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Safaricom enrolls Huawei 400G Network to its core Infrastructure despite bans facing the Chinese company

by Milicent Atieno
safaricom + Huawei + 400g network

It seems Huawei’s bad luck starts and ends in the West, as telecom operators in sub-Saharan Africa do not hesitate to get in bed with the company accused of cyber espionage.

At the sideline of the Mobile World Congress 2019, the Safaricom Chief of Technology officer Thibaud Rerolle announced the Kenyan telecom partnership with Huawei to install a world’s first end-to-end 400G backbone network. Safaricom says this move will increase its efficiency and reliability of its services.

With the enrollment of the 400G backbone to its network, Safaricom will be able to meet the needs of its growing market demanding a faster and reliable internet connection for streaming at offices, homes, and on the go over mobile devices.

The 400G solution will support the continued growth of our network which is being driven by an explosion in internet usage. Mobile data usage on our network has been doubling year-on-year while our fibre network now reaches more than 220,000 homes and 17,000 businesses across more than 10 towns. It was therefore prudent to invest in the latest network technology to ensure that we can support the demand from our customers for years to come,” said Rerolle.

The rollout of the 400G backbone will take place in two phases. Phase one will include Nairobi and Mombasa.

According to research tabled by the Indiana University, the said 400Gbps network connection  will be capable of transmitting “50 gigabytes of data every second – or, enough to stream 16,000 ultra-high-definition movies simultaneously.”

Safaricom’s network is currently using 100G, which experts say is expensive to maintain and inefficient in operations compared to the 400G.

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