Liquid Telecom plans to use a portion of the USD150 million loan it raised last month to roll out fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services in Kenya, Business Daily reports, citing Liquid Telecom Kenya CEO Ben Roberts. The loan, which was facilitated by Standard Chartered and provided by large global investment banks, will fund the further expansion of Liquid Telecom’s fibre network in Africa, with an estimated KES1.4 billion (USD15.1 million) to be spent on FTTH technology in Kenya. The company has been continuing the long-running FTTH pilot projects in Runda and Embakasi that were first launched by Kenya Data Networks (KDN), in which Liquid Telecom acquired an 80% stake in January 2013. ‘We are doing pilot projects in Runda and Embakasi, to offer fibre to the homes. These are not new projects, they were initiated by KDN four years ago and we are only completing them,’ Roberts said. The executive added that Liquid will target towns and areas currently not served by its competitors, which include Jamii Telecommunications, Wananchi Group and Safaricom.
