Yesterday, Meta announced that it has chosen Safaricom as its landing partner for a new submarine cable connecting Kenya and Oman. The deal was signed through Meta’s subsidiary Edge Network Services Limited, marking Meta’s second major undersea cable investment in Kenya.
Safaricom has long dominated Kenya’s mobile voice, data and mobile money markets. Yet, as competition intensifies and growth slows in its traditional segments, the company has been actively repositioning itself as a full-fledged technology company. Its Vision 2030 strategy is built around this transformation and the Meta partnership fits squarely within that vision.
By becoming a landing partner for a global submarine cable, Safaricom is not just providing connectivity anymore, it is helping shape how that connectivity reaches businesses, data centers and eventually end users. This strengthens Safaricom’s hand in enterprise cloud, data hosting and edge computing.
The new cable means much more than faster internet speeds for Kenya. With the country’s growing reliance on cloud services, streaming platforms and digital payments, demand for high-capacity, low-latency connectivity has never been higher.
A new international cable adds redundancy, reducing the impact of outages such as those recently caused by Red Sea cable disruptions, and increases Kenya’s ability to host and process large volumes of data locally. That’s good news for cloud providers, data center operators and even local startups building AI or fintech solutions that require stable, high-speed connectivity.
What is in It for Meta
Meta’s global platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram, rely heavily on fast and reliable data routes. Improved network performance means better user experience and lower delivery costs for Meta’s services.
The move also aligns with Meta’s long-term strategy to build and control parts of the internet infrastructure powering its apps, AI workloads and future metaverse applications.
For these and more stories, follow us on X (Formerly Twitter), Facebook, LinkedIn and Telegram. You can also send us tips or reach out at [email protected].
Also Read: Kenya Internet Exchange Point Expands to iColo’s Mombasa Data Center
