On 11^th February 2014, the KENET team visited the main campus of South Eastern Kenya University (SEKU) to setup and integrate a new KENET-owned broadband access link.  .

SEKU main campus is located in Kitui County in a serene and conducive learning environment, 12 Kilometers off Kwa Vonza Market, along the Kitui-Machakos main road.  SEKU has witnessed tremendous growth and currently offers various certificate, diploma, undergraduate and post graduate programmes. The University has other campuses namely Kitui Town Campus, Machakos Town Campus, Wote Town Campus, Mtito Andei Campus and Nairobi Town Campus. The University has over 6,000 students registered in the various campuses with the bulk of them studying at the University main campus.

SEKU had an existing connection to KENET connection using a Safaricom leased line with a capacity of up to 45 Mb/s. The main purpose of the visit to integrate a new KENET-owned broadband link that would serve as the primary link with the Safaricom as the backup. The new link uses a NOFBI fiber link from Thika to Kitui town and then a Ubuquiti Air Fiber WiFi link t the main campus. The end-to-end capacity was about 200 Mb/s, an over four times increase from the 45 Mb/s connection. The integration involved lighting some internal campus fiber to extend the radio link to SEKU server room.

This new link will allow SEKU to move towards its vision of  “Being a globally competitive centre for excellence in teaching, research, innovation and service”.  SEKU computer labs are open from Monday to Friday from 8am to 10pm and on Saturday from 8am to mid-day to increase access by the students in this rural university campus. According to Mr. Obwaya Mogire, Director, School of Information, Communication and Technology, “The current connectivity at SEKU is good and very beneficial to students who use it wisely and effectively.  The University has also expanded its ICT infrastructure through creating campus wide area networks and hotspots at strategic locations like student hostels, the library, and computer labs.Some of the hotspots were setup with support from KENET under the Google infrastructure grant project in the year 2013.  “Most of the students at SEKU have their personal devices and would love to work from any part of the Campus but the, Wi-fi hotspots are limited to the library, and a few hostels. says Ms. Leila Anyango a third year student pursuing a Bachelor of Commerce.  In addition, the University has implemented an ERP system and voice over IP communications services that make use of the campus network, According to Mr. Mark Rimiru, Ag. ICT Director, “Connectivity has helped to improve services rendered to the university through ERP systems, which have helped to integrate and facilitate the flow of information across all functions within the University”.

KENET will support SEKU as it redesigns and expands it campus infrastructure in order to provide superior administrative and academic computing services.