(Ecofin Agency) - Kenya is now officially connected to Djibouti via an optical fiber with the subsea cable Djibouti Africa Regional Express 1 (Dare1) landing on the Kenyan coast of Mombasa as expected.

In May last year, the Kenyan government expressed its desire to connect to Dare1 for an investment of $59 million. With the more than 5,000 km-long cable completed, Kenya is expected to test the telecom infrastructure in the coming days before it goes live. Dare1, with a capacity of 36 terabits, is the fifth submarine optical fiber cable to which Kenya will be connected.

The country is already connected to the SEACOM system, The East African Marine System (TEAMS), the Eastern African Submarine Cable System (EASSy) and Lion2, and is committed to improving its connectivity capabilities to accelerate the digital transformation it has embarked upon.

Once the DARE1 is operational, its deployment throughout the country and its management will be entrusted to the mobile telephone operator Telkom with whom the government, via the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, had signed a partnership agreement.