Information Technology Landscape in Kenya

COMPUTING & INTERNET DIFFUSION

In Kenya Internet use is growing rapidly. Kenya has one of the largest Internet sectors in Africa, with over 30 licensed ISPs. The national telecom operator operates the main international Internet gateway and a national 2Mbps Internet backbone service in 6 cities called JamboNet. Most of the ISPs rely on this gateway for their upstream connectivity, although some of the larger ISPs use satellite broadcast links to augment their incoming bandwidth and lease separate data lines for backup purposes. As yet it is unclear if KPTC will provide end-user services, or confine itself to resale to ISPs. Almost all ISPs offer leased line services but so far these have mostly been analogue services.

Kenya established an independent national Internet exchange point (IX) in November 2000. The ISP’s that participate include: AfricaOnline, KenyaWeb (formerly Form-Net), SwiftGlobal and ISPKenya. By Sept 2000, just over 1000 domains were registered under the .ke Top Level Domain (TLD).

AfricaOnline which is currently a division African Lakes Corp and is the largest Internet service provider on the continent) functions in Kenya and also in five other countries in sub-Saharan Africa. UUNet of South Africa, a subsidiary of WorldCom, has a joint venture with AfricaOnline.  AfricaOnline plans to extend access to 14 African countries. It also has plans to provide users with 768Kbps links. Presently,  there are only 60, 000 registered users and this is mainly due to lack of computers or telephone lines. In 2000, AfricaOnline launched its "e-touch" system where users can access e-mail and the Internet at designated centers. This solved the problem of shortage of personal computers and unavailability of telephone lines. Nonetheless, various telecommunication infrastructure projects are in progress to increase the number of channels and for this reason connectivity.

In December 2001, Gilat Alldean (Africa) was given a license by Communications Commission of Kenya to provide Very Small Aperture Terminals (VSAT) services to corporations. This service utilizes satellite technology to transmit data between two points via small receivers, avoiding the need for telephone lines. VSAT will be launched by July 2002.  Kenyans have also been able to access Wireless Access Protocal (WAP) sites and send e-mail from their mobile phones. KenCell and its partner Swift Global, a local ISP, were the first to launch such a service in East Africa. This service was launched in early 2002.

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