Seacom has launched a high-capacity terrestrial network route between Nairobi and Kampala, reinforcing one of East Africa’s most critical digital corridors and enhancing reliable, high-performance regional internet connectivity for businesses.
According to the company, the new route connects key infrastructure hubs in Nairobi, Kisumu and Kampala, creating a more resilient and scalable pathway for traffic moving inland from subsea cable landing stations in Mombasa.
It upgrades a long-established corridor into a modern, high-capacity backbone designed to support growing data demand across East Africa.
At launch, the Nairobi–Kampala route activates one Tbps of capacity, with the ability to scale up to 30 Tbps as demand grows.
This allows Seacom to expand capacity quickly without major redesigns or additional infrastructure builds.
“Service availability has been a major consideration,” explained David Kariuki, chief technology officer at Seacom.
“By managing and controlling more of the route ourselves, and adding automated switching, we can maintain uptime even when there are breaks along the network.”
The route provides latency of approximately seven milliseconds to Nairobi and 13 milliseconds to Mombasa, supporting real-time applications such as financial transactions, cloud workloads and enterprise services.
Seacom stated the corridor underpins a wide range of industries, from telecommunications and financial services to cloud platforms and digital commerce.
As these sectors expand, demand for consistent, low-latency connectivity continues to rise. The new route meets that demand by improving access to international bandwidth and enabling faster, more reliable data movement between markets, the company noted.
“We are strengthening a route that already plays a central role in regional connectivity,” said Kariuki.
“We are ensuring that this segment is served by a high-capacity, carrier-grade network that can support the scale and performance today’s digital economy requires.”
Beyond Kenya and Uganda, the route also supports regional integration by providing a more efficient pathway into neighbouring markets such as Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan, facilitating cross-border digital services and trade.
Moreover, the route forms part of Seacom’s broader investment in East Africa’s digital infrastructure.
The launch follows Seacom's continued investment in East Africa, including upgrades to its Ugandan IP network aimed at improving capacity, performance and service reliability.
The company has been expanding its regional terrestrial infrastructure to support growing demand for cloud services, digital platforms and cross-border connectivity.
“This continues our work to strengthen networks across the region. We upgraded our IP network in Uganda last year, and this route builds on that foundation by improving both capacity and quality across a key corridor,” Kariuki emphasised.
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