Safaricom inks 20-year fiber lease deal with Kenya Power

Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest mobile operator, today announced the lease of fiber network capacity on Kenya Power & Lightning’s fiber optic cable,to prevent further damage to fiber-optic links, writes Bloomberg.com.

The operator estimates loses of around 20 million shillings in revenue every year due to acts of vandalism to its fiber-optic links.

According to Michael Joseph, CEO Safaricom, the lease will be enforced on the primary route between Nairobi and Mombasa, for one pair of the 48 fiber-optic links on the cable, for a period of 20 years. Total lease costs will reach $3,8 milion or 288 million shillings per year.

Also, Safaricom will transfer data traffic to the Kenya Power fiber link on February 15.

Safaricom has access to the East African Marine System fibre-optic cable that links Kenya to United Arab Emirates, owning a capacity of 22,500 megabytes. Last year in July, Safaricom purchased an additional 620 MB access to a cable owned by Seacom.

Kenya Power started the fibre optic linking project in 1989 to build a national transmission and distribution grid in the country valued at 1,9 billion shillings. The link is almost complete between Nairobi and Mombasa, with final extensions in Kenyan towns and the power station in Uganda ready in following weeks, according to Kenya Powers’s CEO, Joseph Njoroge.

Currently, Kenya Power uses 6 pairs of fiber-optic links and leases the other 18. Rent on the fiber network on Nairobi-Mombasa route is a monthly $32 and $60 per pair for every kilometer, for a 20 years and 5 years lease respectively.