African telecoms enabler SEACOM has extended its support of Uganda's technology incubation hubs by providing high speed internet (20mbps) connectivity to Hive Colab and Outbox. Both centres support developers and entrepreneurs who develop products for Uganda's burgeoning technology industry.

"This investment in bandwidth falls in line with SEACOM's commitment to supporting technology innovation in Africa and to helping Uganda's technology industry capitalise on the opportunities of broadband Internet," said Joseph Muriithi, SEACOM's Managing Director for Kenya and Regional Head of Sales for North East Africa.

The company has been supporting innovation hubs in Kenya since 2012 and in Uganda from 2014. Nailab, iHub, m:lab and 88 mph are the Kenyan incubation and innovation centres leveraging SEACOM's high speed internet services.

Muriithi said SEACOM will continue supporting broadband penetration in line with the East African Community's mandate to ensure over 80% of its population has internet access by 2030.

Developments in Uganda, which include partnerships with last-mile providers, form part of its strategy to expand into new territories and become "a true pan-African service provider," according to the company.

In a brief statement about the company's strategy and objectives for Africa in 2016, Suveer Ramdhani, SEACOM Chief Development Officer, said the aim is to engage with as many territories as possible and the broader strategy is to first evaluate the 'readiness' of markets and their specific conditions.

Currently, the company is considering Zambia, Zimbabwe and possibly Burundi. "We are also heading to Rwanda, which makes sense given that it is a neighbour to markets like Kenya and Uganda," Ramdhani said.

While the focus is to drive fibre to the business and this remains a growth area for SEACOM, Ramdhani adds that the company is also concentrating on establishing new ways to address the connectivity requirements of underserved areas in Africa.

SEACOM's main cable landing station for East Africa is in Mombasa, with links to Asia, Europe and South Africa. Capacity from the cable is extended inland to Nairobi via three routes and then onto the Tororo border in protected mode. From here, it extends to SEACOM's Kampala point of presence via underground and overhead routes.

The company's landing station in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania offers redundancy for Ugandan links to the SEACOM network. This ensures high service availability and service levels for Internet users in Uganda, according to SEACOM.