NAIROBI, Kenya, March 1 -Kenya’s internet speed is set to be more stable, faster, and secure following confirmation by a global non-profit organization The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that the country will host one of Africa’s biggest data center.
Nairobi’s hub will be among the firms’ four centers which will among others, reduce the time it takes for a website to load, particularly when there are spikes in Internet usage.
“The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) will install and manage two new ICANN Managed Root Server (IMRS) clusters in Africa, one of which is confirmed to be in Kenya. This is ICANN’s first-of-its-kind investment in Africa” the firm said in a statement.
Besides, the centers are aimed at reducing the impact of a potential cyberattack on the continent.
“Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) cyberattacks work by overwhelming servers with a flood of queries. With two separate IMRS cluster locations and higher bandwidth and data processing capacity, the risk of the Internet going down because of a cyberattack will be significantly reduced. Increased capacity lessens the impact of attacks,” the firm added.
Göran Marby, ICANN President and CEO said that adding the clusters in Africa is a key step to stimulating Internet access and to strengthening the Internet stability of the entire continent.
“Extending our infrastructure in Africa is in line with ICANN’s mission to ensure that the Internet remains secure, stable, and resilient across the world,” said
Joseph Mucheru, E.G.H, Cabinet Secretary in the Kenyan Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs, lauded the investment as a positive development both in line with the African Digital Transformation Strategy (2020-2030) and more specifically with Kenya’s Digital Economy Blueprint
“ We, therefore, thank ICANN for their confidence in choosing Kenya one more time as one of the hosts of this important infrastructure that would serve not only Kenya but the rest of Africa and the world. Implementation of this initiative will be of immense importance in accelerating the digital transformation agenda in Kenya.”
