Earlier this morning at Nairobi’s Utalii Hotel, Kenya’s communications regulator sat down with telecom operators to discuss a problem that has quietly cost the country a lot of money: nobody has a reliable, shared map of where Kenya’s terrestrial fiber optic cables actually run.
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), led by Director General David Mugonyi, convened the workshop to push forward two related proposals, namely, the adoption of the Open Fiber Data Standard (OFDS) and the creation of a shared national fiber infrastructure database.
The core problem is Kenya has invested heavily in broadband over the years, including submarine cables, fiber networks spread across all 47 counties, and wide mobile coverage.
The infrastructure story looks good on paper. However, while undersea cable routes are publicly mapped (largely because ships need to know where they are to avoid cutting them), the terrestrial fiber networks that connect everything inland are a different story.
READ: Kenya Crosses 2 Million Fiber and Wireless Internet Connections
Operators report their infrastructure inconsistently, and there is no single place where anyone can look up what exists and where.
As a result, public funds, including money from the Universal Service Fund (USF) and the Digital Superhighway initiative, have gone into building fiber along routes where cables already existed, simply because nobody checked, or there was nothing reliable to check.
“Investment decisions have at times advanced without knowledge of existing infrastructure,” Mugonyi said, “resulting in the unnecessary duplication of routes, inefficient allocation of capital, preventable damage during construction, and the inability to accurately identify underserved areas.”
Construction crews have damaged cables they didn’t know were there. Policymakers trying to identify underserved areas have had to work from incomplete pictures.
“We cannot collectively continue to operate with this level of confusion, waste, and inefficiency,” Mugonyi emphasized.
READ: Kenya and Tanzania Launch High-Speed Fiber Internet Link
The OFDS is an internationally developed data standard designed to bring consistency to how fiber infrastructure gets described and reported.
The CA, backed by World Bank funding through the Kenya Digital Economy Acceleration Project, wants to adapt and adopt it locally, then build a database on top of it where operators submit structured data about their networks.
“It is NOT a platform for the indiscriminate disclosure of sensitive information or a pathway to compromising commercial interests,” Mugonyi pointed out.
The CA’s proposed approach involves starting with a limited set of non-sensitive data fields, restricting access to the database on a need-to-know basis, including industry representatives in how the system is governed, and bringing in independent cybersecurity audits from the start.
“We will implement the OFDS with thoughtfulness and great care,” he added.
The logic is that coordinated infrastructure information benefits everyone, including the operators who might be reluctant to share. Fewer duplicated routes means lower deployment costs across the board.
Better knowledge of what exists means public investment goes where it’s actually needed. Accurate network maps help with resilience planning when cables get cut or infrastructure fails.
Mugonyi framed the mutual dependency plainly, saying, “We need each other – government, industry, and development partners. This is good for all of us.”
The workshop is a consultation, not an announcement of finished policy. The CA is asking operators to help define exactly which data parameters get submitted and to shape the governance model before anything is locked in.
READ: Kenya’s Best ISP: Faiba Claims the Crown for Fastest Internet
“Let us use this workshop to refine the proposed parameters and shape a governance model suited to Kenya’s unique context,” Mugonyi said, “one founded on trust, technical rigor, and a shared commitment to national development.”
Whether operators engage seriously will depend on how much they trust that commercial sensitivity protections will hold. That’s not a small ask in a competitive market, but the alternative of continuing to invest in the dark, duplicating routes, and missing underserved communities is a cost the sector is already paying.
