Corporate News
Liquid Telecom Kenya CEO Ben Roberts. PHOTO | DIANA NGILA
By OKUTTAH MARK, mokuttah@ke.nationmedia.co
In Summary
- Liquid Telecom’s customers include other wholesale carriers, mobile network operators, Internet service providers, financial institutions and businesses.
- Liquid will start offering fibre Internet connectivity to homes, in a market currently dominated by Jamii Telecoms which has 80,000 fibre-to-the-homes passes (ready infrastructure that connect homes to the fibre), and Wananchi Group.
UK-owned technology firm Liquid Telecom has announced
a re-entry into Kenya’s retail Internet connections, four years after
its first foray into the highly competitive market.
Liquid Telecom Kenya CEO Ben Roberts said in an interview the company intends to complete some of the fibre-to-home projects that the former owners of the company, Kenya Data Network (KDN), had started.
“We are doing pilot projects in Runda and Embakasi,
to offer fibre to the homes. These are not new projects, they were
initiated by KDN four years ago and we are only completing them,” said
Mr Rudnick.
Liquid Telecom’s customers include other wholesale
carriers, mobile network operators, Internet service providers,
financial institutions and businesses.
Its UK parent firm recently announced that it had
raised Sh13.7 billion ($150 million), which, it says will fund further
expansion of its fibre network in Africa.
The loan was facilitated by Standard Chartered and provided by large global investment banks.
The loan was facilitated by Standard Chartered and provided by large global investment banks.
An estimated Sh1.4 billion will be spent in Kenya.
Mr Roberts said with the funding, Liquid will start
offering fibre Internet connectivity to homes, in a market currently
dominated by Jamii Telecoms which has 80,000 fibre-to-the-homes passes
(ready infrastructure that connect homes to the fibre), and Wananchi
Group.
“We are only going to target those towns or areas
currently not served by our competitors to avoid duplication of
service,” said Mr Roberts.
Liquid Telecom’s re-entry into the home Internet
comes barely months after its rival, AccessKenya, made a strategic shift
to stop offering new home connections amid stiff competition
from mobile phone firms such as Safaricom, Airtel and Orange who offer
wireless Internet services.
The firm was ranked second with an 18 per cent
market share or 11,360 users, according to the Communications Authority
of Kenya’s latest filings by the operators, compared to Wananchi Group
18,050 users which translates to 44.2 market share.
Telkom Kenya and AccessKenya are in third and fourth position.
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