The Wananchi Group, which provides triple-play (broadband, multichannel cable television and voice telephony) and VSAT (broadband data and Internet) services — currently the only triple-play operator in East Africa — is rolling out new services in nine countries in the eastern African region: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Ethiopia, Sudan and Zambia.The Wananchi Group, which provides triple-play (broadband, multichannel cable television and voice telephony) and VSAT (broadband data and Internet) services — currently the only triple-play operator in East Africa — is rolling out new services in nine countries in the eastern African region: Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Ethiopia, Sudan and Zambia.
The group is deploying Cisco’s integrated end-to-end network technology solutions, encompassing Cisco’s Borderless Networks, collaboration and data centre virtualisation solutions, as their customer base expands and technology advances.
Speaking of its recent agreement to purchase Cisco network technology solutions and services, Mark Schneider, group chairman, the Wananchi Group, said, “The Wananchi Group’s key objective is to expand our portfolio and enhance our commercial proposition, revenues and reputation. Cisco will help us to continuously deliver the necessary technology enhancements to our infrastructure to serve our ever-growing customer needs and remain at the forefront of delivering new and innovative services to our customers.”
Cisco and Wananchi
The Wananchi Group is one of the first companies in the region to utilise the additional innovative resources that Cisco has to offer beyond its products and standard maintenance services. Cisco has been selected as the Wananchi Group’s preferred supplier of the end-to-end infrastructure, encompassing access technologies (fibre and cable), the core Internet Protocol network, optical transport up to the video head-end, data centre solutions, and multimedia set-top boxes.
Together, Cisco and Wananchi Group are providing a number of innovative and competitive managed and hosted communications and collaboration services for the residential, corporate and government sectors. Commenting on Cisco’s agreement with Wananchi, Paul Mountford, president of emerging markets, Cisco, said, “This is becoming increasingly important for our customers in Africa where we are witnessing major developments in the information, communications and technology landscape.”
