JUNE 18, 2009 -- Alcatel-Lucent (search Lightwave for Alcatel-Lucent) and Kenya Data Networks (KDN), a data communications carrier in Kenya and one of the largest in Africa, have further strengthened their cooperation by signing a three-year frame agreement valued at EUR15 million. The agreement covers the supply, integration, installation and deployment for Alcatel-Lucent's optical networking and switching technologies for KDN's transport network across Kenya and neighboring countries in East Africa.
The new DWDM network will enable KDN to increase the capacity, efficiency, and intelligence of its existing infrastructure to deliver advanced services to its end users. Additionally, it will allow KDN to enhance its wholesale bandwidth offering for Kenya's transit traffic.
The deployment of the Alcatel-Lucent system will start from Mombasa, Kenya's second largest city, to Nairobi, the country's capital, and will then extend to the major links connecting Kenya with neighboring countries. With its data transport capacity and traffic aggregation capabilities, the new optical network will help KDN strengthen its position as a transit data provider linking Uganda, Rwanda, and Ethiopia. The network will also provide the backhaul capacity needed to transport the bandwidth made available by submarine cable networks in the region.
KDN also will further extend and upgrade its IP/MPLS network, which is based on the Alcatel-Lucent Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture (TPSDA). Once deployed, the expanded network will cover twelve metro areas across Kenya supporting mobile, residential and enterprise customers.
Enhancements to the IP/MPLS network include Alcatel-Lucent's GPON technologies as well as additional IP/MPLS service routers. The expanded network will support KDN's IP infrastructure with more resiliency, capacity, and flexibility. The provider also expects the network to set "a new benchmark" for performance and quality of service (QoS) required to offer triple-play services at nonblocking speeds simultaneously to business and residential users. Enterprise users will have access to service-level-agreement (SLA) based networking services like Virtual Private LAN service (VPLS) and IP virtual private networks (VPN), also with guaranteed QoS.
Alcatel-Lucent's 1626 Light Manager provides a fully tunable and reconfigurable optical add-drop multiplexing (ROADM) architecture, enabling operators to design, plan, and operate their networks with agility. For traffic crossconnection, Alcatel-Lucent will also deploy its 1678 Metro Core Connect using GMPLS for restoration.
Under the terms of the agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will deploy its 7450 Ethernet Service Switch and additional 7750 service routers, to complement the existing portfolio already in the network. The company will also provide its GPON-based 7342 Intelligent Services Access Manager Fiber-to-the-User (ISAM FTTU) platform.
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