የጅቡቲው የኢንተርኔት ዳታ ሴንተር የኣገሪቱ የኢንተርኔት ፍጥነት ያሻሽለዋል ተባለ

Djibouti internet start-up to boost broadband

Internet access in east Africa is still relatively slow and costly but a Djibouti-based technology start-up company has ambitions to help change that.

Djibouti Data Centre (DDC), set up by a group of local and international investors 18 months ago, is the first data centre and internet exchange in east Africa connected to eight fibre optic cables that are part of the main internet route from Europe to Asia.

The internet route travels through the Mediterranean, Red Sea and into the Indian Ocean, passing by tiny Djibouti, which is sandwiched between Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia.

African internet users have typically enjoyed little benefit from these cables passing along its coast because connectivity to them has been limited, something the DDC aims to correct as it plans to expand from its home base into Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan and Somalia, which are all at varying stages of internet development.

“The Djibouti market itself may be small, but the DDC serves as a unique gateway hub to the many millions of customers in these neighbouring east Africa countries,” Anthony Voscarides, chief executive of Djibouti Data Centre, said.

The company launched services in March 2013 in partnership with Djibouti Telecom.

It hopes to connect to at least three more cables on the Europe/Asia route next year.

“Africa has historically been challenged by high internet costs,” Voscarides, an Australian former telecoms industry executive, said.

According to The Internet Society, 15.7% of Kenya’s average GDP per capita is required for broadband access, compared to 6.1% in South Africa and less than 2% in most of Europe.

In Ethiopia the figure rises to 60.4% while in Uganda it is 31% and 7.4% in Sudan.

Less than 2% of Ethiopia’s 97 million population use the internet.

But Sydney-based consultants BuddeComm said the country’s “broadband market is set for a boom following massive improvements in international bandwidth, national fibre backbone infrastructure and 3G mobile broadband services”.

Kenya is the biggest market in the region with internet penetration of 39%, the fourth-highest in Africa, according to the International Telecommunications Union.

In terms of median download speeds, however, Kenya is ranked 105th globally, while Ethiopia is 94th, Sudan 154th and South Africa is 116th, according to the Internet Society.

Madagascar is the highest ranked African country at 61. The DDC’s goal is to expand into neighbouring east African countries with small data centres which would then allow telecom operators, cable companies and others in those countries to access the submarine cables off Djibouti via its main datacentre. 

Source: www.thenewage.co.za

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