NAIROBI: Kenya's Safaricom CEO Bobby Collymore said that they will be laying a fiber-optic cable network that will offer faster and more efficient Internet data services. “The “data tsunami” will come and it will come maybe 12 months or 18 months from now,” he said. He also added that the next set on infrastructure investments will be surrounding fiber as they heavily depend on it. “The next set of investments is going to be around fiber because we have major dependency on fiber,” Bob Collymore told the Reuters Africa Investment Summit. Low cost smart phones and other Internet hand held devices are expected to help propagate this “data tsunami,” as a result they will be expecting a demand pitch for data services. He added that the move will improve the firm's services as damaged cables will be replaced. “The move would improve the firm's services as it will result in the replacement of old cables and those that have been spliced during road construction.” He added that the formation of partnerships with other operators in the industry would enable the project to be implemented faster. “The industry needs to work on sharing infrastructure. We are looking at what would be a sensible model for us so we can do it twice as quickly and at half the cost.”
