Internet firm sinks Sh228 million in plan to bridge digital divide

Undersea Fibre

Internet business and access in the country has for a number of years remained a corporate affair with 80 per cent of the three million users being concentrated in Nairobi.

The entry of the undersea fibre optic cables—Teams, Seacom and Eassy— is, however, expected to increase the number of Internet users to over 10 million in the next five years.

Instaconnect hopes to take advantage of the undersea fibre optic cables, which will link Kenya to the rest of the world at cheaper rates than the current satellite connectivity, in bringing the last mile Internet connectivity countrywide.

"We plan to purchase enough capacity from both Teams and Seacom so that we can offer out clients redundancy. All our clients will be offered from 512k to 2mb business class link capacities," Chauhan told The Financial Journal last week.

The company, which also offers wireless local loop services to other ISPs, believes its economies of scale, quality of services it offers and its pricing policy would enable it remain competitive in a market currently dominated by 73 ISPs.

Amongst its direct competitors include Access Kenya Ltd, Uunet Kenya, and Swift Global, which is relying on a franchising model to cut operational costs and maximise profits.

Instaconnect, which currently serves approximately 250 corporate clients in Nairobi, specializes in providing solutions ranging from large corporate to the small and medium-sized (SME) sector.

WiMAX Network

The company, which pioneered the country’s first certified WiMAX Network in 2005, delivers robust, reliable and scalable broadband Internet services for corporate office and home office using a point-to-multipoint fixed wireless system "We provide affordable, high speed, unlimited wireless Internet services to both the corporate and retail markets. Our clients range across industry, scope and solution requirements," says Chauhan.

The company’s newly introduced IMAX Server is a complete Internet server and gateway solution with the capability of filtering website contents which can be customised to restrict employees to using websites such as yahoo mail, face book and twitter in order to increase productivity and reduce abuse of company facilities.

Chauhan says Instaconnect Application Hosted Solution brings together essential services in order to help businesses, schools and families communicate and collaborate more effectively.

These services, he says, require no maintenance and can be obtained for a minimum of Sh10, 000 per annum for up to 500 e-mail addresses.

"Everything is unified by the Start Page, a central place for your users to preview their inboxes and calendars, access your essential content, and search the web," says Chauhan.

Instaconnect, which operates on a licensed private frequency of 3.5 GHz, contends that the coming of the fiber optic cable will expose businesses to the Internet without prior arrangement on Internet security measures.

Total Security

"For this reason, we have just introduced Quick Heal Total Security that gives you complete protection from viruses, spy wares, and hackers. It also helps you stay connected and communicate over the Internet by preventing your system from threats over the Internet," says Chauhan.

Quick Heal Total Security enables one to can scan and clean mobile phone connected via Bluetooth or USB cable.

Broadband and Internet penetration and availability of bandwidth are still very low in Kenya mainly due to lack of infrastructure and relevant local content.

It is argued that investing in broadband in under-served areas would strengthen the country’s economy and provide business and job opportunities in every section of the country, with benefits to e-commerce, education and healthcare.

According to data from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) only 7.9 per cent (3 million) of the 37,953,838 people used internet in the year 2008 compared to 0.7 per cent (200,000) against a population of 30,339,770 in the year 2000.

The Government however hopes that with the recent adoption of the Unified Licensing Regime, Kenya should have close to 50 per cent Internet penetration by 2013.

The Government of Kenya has identified ICTs as one of the key drivers of attaining Vision 2030, which aims at transforming the country to a fast developing economy.

The sector has also been earmarked for creating new jobs for the youth through the development of a vibrant Business Process Outsourcing industry.

To this end, the Government is spearheading the development of critical national and international broadband backbone infrastructure with a view to reducing the cost of international bandwidth in the country.

Lower Cost

The deployment of national broadband fibre optic connectivity to all district headquarters is to take advantage of the three sub-marine cables competing to land at the coastal city of Mombasa this year.

The completion of these infrastructure projects is expected to lower the cost of Internet access and thus spread the digital dividends to a bigger proportion of Kenyans.The projects will also make e-government a reality in the country.