Djiboutian internet start-up Djibouti Data Center (DDC), which was established by a group of local and international investors 18 months ago, has set out ambitious plans to improve internet speeds and drive down costs in the east Africa region, Reuters reports. DDC is the first data centre firm and IXP operator in the region to successfully connect to no fewer than eight fibre-optic cables that help form the primary internet route from Europe to Asia. The cables are part of a corridor of internet connectivity, crossing the Mediterranean and the Red Sea before moving into the Indian Ocean. However, to date African internet users have been denied the benefits of the high bandwidth capacity on its coast because connectivity to them has been severely limited. DDC now wants to change this by using Djibouti’s status as a ‘unique gateway hub to the many millions of customers in neighbouring east Africa countries,’ said its CEO Anthony Voscarides. Going forward, DDC plans to expand from its home base into Kenya, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Somalia, which are all at varying stages of internet development, it said. The start-up launched services in March 2013 in partnership with national PTO Djibouti Telecom and will connect to at least three more cables on the Europe/Asia route in 2015. It also intends to deploy small regional data centres in these countries to allow telcos, cable companies and others to access the submarine cables lying off the Djibouti coast via its main data centre. However, Voscarides stopped short of providing estimates of how much connectivity could be improved or cost reduced by the plan.
