Kenyans will from June this year enjoy increased Internet speeds, ICT Principal Secretary Jerome Ochieng’ has said. The government is already on course with plans to increase the country’s internet capacity by up to tenfold for better efficiency.
During a visit to the Telkom Kenya offices in Mombasa, Ochieng’ said the increased usage of internet in the country had necessitated the increase in bandwidth.
Data from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) shows that Kenya’s bandwidth internet capacity rose twofold to 6.2 million Mbps from 2016 to 2019.
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“We will increase the bandwidth by ten times to have faster Internet speeds for citizens. The Covid-19 pandemic has made us think and work differently. The Internet has become everything to us, we are too much becoming dependent on the Internet,” said Mr Ochieng’.
“We are at 95 per cent complete and certainly within the next two to three months, we will be able to finish the administrative work before Kenyans start enjoying the benefits.”
He said cabling from Mombasa to the Konza technopolis had been laid to provide ready-to-plug backbone ICT network.
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Konza city will host the country’s national data centre, e-government, smart city facilities and services to support the project as well as a host of small and medium enterprises services. Most government agencies are expected to use the data centre to save on business costs and help in the management of government data.
“We want to ensure people have reliable and affordable data. The demand has grown and we are expanding the bandwidth capacity to give much faster services to our citizens,” the PS said.
The Covid-19 pandemic saw an increase internet usage due to lockdowns, work for home directives, restriction of movement and closure of schools. More people have since been working and studying remotely as more services are procured online.
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