A submarine cable connecting Djibouti and Kenya is now ready. Early this week, the cable, christened Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (Dare1), landed in Mombasa.
Dare1 will improve connectivity between nations in the Horn of African region. It will also give connectivity of the entire region with the rest of the world a huge shot in the arm.
Technicians have finished installing the 5,000km-long cable. All that remains now is its official launching. They will also use the next few months to pre-test the cable.
Currently, Dare1 connects Somalia, Djibouti, and Kenya. An offer to extend it to Tanzania is already in place too.
A consortium comprising East Africa’s biggest telecos owns Dare1. These include Telecom and Somtel of Djibouti. Kenya’s Telkom belongs in this list too.
Dare1, a 30TB per second service, costs an estimated $86 million. Its capacity per wavelength of 100Gbps makes it extremely powerful to serve users in the region.