MTN Business Kenya has been rolling out its own fibre optic network in the country, its metro fibre network covers a radius of 100 km in Nairobi and its environs. Back in 2013, the service provider leased lines from Kenya Data Network (KDN), Telkom Kenya, Jamii Telecoms and Wananchi Group. MTN decided to drop some of these carriers due to poor quality of service, at the same time an ambitious project was launched to install its own fibre cable network. Plans are underway to extend this network to other major towns in Kenya at a cost of over KShs 800 million.
For a while now, MTN has been offering VPN services to its customers in Kenya. The service provider however wants to introduce better efficiency into their customers’s networks. This is part of the reason they have switched their network operations to the Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) standard. MPLS introduces efficiencies between the customer’s and provider’s networks by removing the need for complex data routing policies. Through MPLS-VPN, enterprises can seamlessly deploy VoIP services, video conferencing, and route traffic to SCADA controllers.
“This switch has also opened a new era for us as a true Africa brand, Global Operator, for our customers on the continent as well as the rest of the world. The increasingly Multinational Companies requirements are demanding for managed end to end solutions underwritten with superior delivery on service level agreements when they come to Africa. Our global (MPLS) VPN service is customer centric with the necessary agility &flexibility to change as requirements do.”, says Tom Omariba, Managing Director at MTN Business Kenya.
“Our MPLS-VPN solution can scale to accomodate the needs of SME’s all through to multi-national corporations. It has in-built quality of service and connectivity of service with the capability of prioritizing customer traffic per application basis,” says MTN’s Peter Othieno.
Kenya joins 16 other African countries in which MTN has deployed the global MPLS-VPN service. Egypt, Malawi, DRC and Mauritius are some of the countries in which the service is already activated. MTN is planning to roll out the service to 32 more African countries by Q4/2014.
