Huawei eyes state with new network solutions

Global ICT firm Huawei is fast moving to cement its position locally as a technology service provider with its newly introduced network solutions.

This is as government projects that the digital economy will be worth $23 trillion  by 2025 and that returns on ICT Investment will be 6.7 times higher than other sectors.

In a meeting with government and private sector Chief ICT officers and thought leaders on Wednesday, the firm introduced a series of products such as Wi-Fi 6, SD-WAN and Gigabit Passive Optical Networks (GPON)

“These products use a unified platform and converge extensive branch services to simplify service deployment,” Huawei Enterprise regional Chief Technical officer Matamela Mashau said.

He further noted that while the products leverage the unique hardware acceleration engine, they offer two times better performance than the industry average.

In addition, the for software-defined networking in a wide area network (SD-WAN ) implements “3 bits of intelligence” –– intelligent application identification, application-based intelligent traffic steering, and intelligent acceleration –– to simplify cloud and network interconnection for enterprises.

Besides the network solutions, the firm confirmed working and currently setting standards on the next generation of wireless internet, Wi-Fi 6.

The wireless network is said to offer 9.6Gbps in terms of speed up from the current 3.5Gbps on Wi-Fi 5.

While it’s impossible to experience such speeds in the real world use of Wi-Fi in your laptop or phone, it’s expected that typical download speeds will increase significantly.

According to the Global Akamai’s state of the internet report 2017, Kenya has the Worlds 14th-fastest mobile internet speed at 13.7 megabits per second.

Speaking during the Huawei IT day in Kenya, two months ago, Huawei Technologies Deputy CEO Daniel Yang said Huawei's competitive edge in data storage, cloud services, and artificial intelligence can be harnessed to hasten Kenya's transition to a knowledge-based economy.

Michael Liu, chief technology officer at Huawei Technologies (Kenya) Company Limited, said the company is prepared to help with automation in Kenya's public and private sectors.