By Millicent Njeri / Press Release
Small and Medium Enterprises (SME’s) and businesses that operate in Small offices and Home offices (SoHos) will enjoy high capacity, affordable and reliable Internet service to promote their growth. This follows the launch of Butterfly Optic Xpress (BOX), by Kenya Data Networks (KDN).
BOX is set to provide high broadband capacity that will enable the transfer of large files, the use of Voice over Internet services and greater access to web based streaming and download of videos on demand, thus benefiting directly from the huge capacity made available locally through the KDN terrestrial fiber infrastructure.
Businesses seeking cheaper and reliable broadband solutions will enjoy guaranteed connectivity withrefunds on downtime. According to Kai Wulff the KDN Chief Executive Officer, SME’s consider the cost and the quality of service as key when selecting a broadband solution. “BOX is a solution that will address both cost and quality by offering guarantees on the best broadband connectivity at the lowest market price,” says Kai.
BOX will be installed free of charge to SMEs and SoHos in all fiber buildings across the country. Other benefits will include provision of a free Izzytalk number (VOIP), free Butterfly email addresses and free email domain hosting. Through the signing of Service Level Agreements, KDN will guarantee the business owner to providing 98% uptime to the SMEs/ SoHos.
“SME’s will now be able to save on their communication costs and still maintain high standards by the use of integrated communication solutions such as VOIP, email and data storage to increase their business reach and grow their market share. SMEs will be able to connect between 1 to 20 computers and employ more people while using minimal internet costs.” Kai emphasised.
Largely ignored by the Internet Service providers, market growth forecasts in the enterprise sector have predicted an increased penetration of the consumer markets by SMEs/SoHos in the coming years.
KDN has already connected over 400 buildings in Nairobi and across the country with the terrestrial fiber. BOX targets SMEs and SoHos in all these fibre buildings.
“The process has been simplified because SMEs will only have to confirm whether their building has a fiber connection from KDN and call KDN to be provided with BOX. Our resellers will visit the site immediately and carry out a survey after which BOX will be connected free of charge to their offices,” says Kai.
This puts KDN as the only provider who will be offering the cheapest bandwidth solution in the market. An SME that uses 1MB per month will now be able to download 324,000MBs in one month. This is equivalent to 324 Gigabytes of data in a month, for which SMEs will be paying only 1 cent per MB.
“It is important for internet service providers to use the successful terrestrial fiber infrastructure as a guide for new offerings that will support the rapid growth of the SME and SoHo markets in the country and regionally,” Kai added.
Broadband solutions have developed a tarnished reputation over the past decade because of the high cost and delay in installations while perceived service quality has also not compared favourably to the expectations of the SME/ SoHo market. The government has recently announced that it will begin the implementation of laws that will compel Internet service providers who collude to hike prices, to lower the costs and pass on the benefits of affordable broadband capacity from Seacom and Teams submarine cables to the public.
