Safaricom Plc., Kenya’s largest telecommunications operator, has received environmental clearance to install a subsea fibre-optic branch within the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), Tuko News reported.

The National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) published the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in a government gazette on August 12.

The plan divides the branch into two routes.

“The Southern branch traverses from the Kenyan EEZ into Tanzanian waters, and the Northern branch traverses into the Kenyan Territorial Sea (TS) with a landing on Nyali beach within Nyali Sub-County, Mombasa County,” the report stated, as quoted by Tuko News.

NEMA ruled the project’s environmental impact as manageable under strict safeguards. These include safety zones for turtles and marine mammals, avoidance of coral areas in the Mombasa Marine National Reserve, vessel compliance with MARPOL 73/78, restricted working hours, low-noise equipment, licensed waste handling onshore and offshore, and clear public notices for beach users and fishers.

Additional measures target air and water quality, fisheries coordination, and occupational safety. The report also confirmed that “electro-magnetic frequency (EMF) from fibre is non-ionising.”

Rising demand for high-capacity internet infrastructure is driving the investment. McKinsey data show East Africa’s internet penetration has climbed from 27% in 2023 to an estimated 35% in 2025. Enterprise spending on cloud services is growing at 25–30% a year, now worth about $450mn, according to the EU-Africa Digital Hub.

With eight new data centres under construction and 100 MW of additional capacity expected by 2030, Nairobi-listed Safaricom’s cable is positioned to strengthen cross-border connectivity on the Indian Ocean rim, improve redundancy for existing routes, and meet surging needs for cloud, content delivery, and digital financial services.

The subsea expansion comes amid growing competition from satellite internet providers, with local market updates, however, indicating consumers have recently shifted away from billionaire Elon Musk’s Starlink. As bne IntelliNews reported, Safaricom added over 56,000 fixed internet subscriptions in the third quarter of 2024/2025, raising its market share to 36.5% from 36.1%. Total connections reached 678,118 by March 2025, up from 621,149 the previous quarter, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya.

Safaricom’s shareholding structure comprises the Government of Kenya (35%), South Africa’s Vodacom Group (35%), the UK’s Vodafone Group (5%), and public investors holding the remaining 25%.