KENET member institutions can now enjoy high-quality and faster bandwidth after KENET expanded its core network from 10 Gb/s to 40 Gb/s and 100 Gb/s. The upgrade was completed by KENET engineers using equipment supplied by Telco Systems, a leading provider of innovative network equipment solutions. The upgrade will enhance network productivity and responsiveness for KENET, meeting the needs of users in the education and research sectors.

In September 2017, Telco Systems signed an agreement with KENET, the National Research and Education (NREN) of Kenya to upgrade the capacity of its carrier Ethernet network from 10GE to both 40GE and 100GE in different network segments. Consequently, in July 2018, KENET completed the implementation of its core network upgrade from 10Gb/s to at least 40Gb/s. This has enabled the KENET backbone network to distribute more capacity as the demand for Internet and connectivity in the connected member institutions increases.

For education and research institutions, the upgrade signals an improved experience while accessing KENET services. The expanded network capacity will also allow KENET to offer additional advanced services to its growing community while supporting growing data traffic demands to member institutions and support inter-connectivity to NRENs across the globe. Alongside high-speed Internet connectivity, KENET provides cloud-based services such as server co-location, virtual servers for e-learning systems and web conferencing to over 140 member-institutions across Kenya.

The network upgrade comes at an ideal time when there has been increasing demand from KENET members for bandwidth distribution, broadband network connectivity, backup services and disaster recovery services. Since the fiber lighting project deployments in 2011, this becomes one of the major network upgrades KENET has done to improve of services and streamline support of the backbone network.