By DOREEN WAINAINAH dwainainah@ke.nationmedia.com
In Summary
Connectivity has become the core conversation in the digital age.
Kenya boasts of a data subscription of 26.8 million with
users estimated to be 37.7 million which is estimated to be an 85.3 per
cent penetration.
This has spurred the push by providers targeting
towns beyond the capital as well as providing services to low-end
households . They’ve also been upgrading the bandwidth available for end
consumers.
The high-end neighbourhoods have long benefited
from the presence of fibre and Wi-Fi, saturating the segment, leaving
providers grappling with the search for new market and expanded
products.
“The affluent neighbourhoods are more or less
covered with fibre, but there is potential in the middle-income areas,”
said Ben Roberts, Liquid Telcom’s chief executive.
AccessKenya, an Internet service provider, in
partnership with a Silicon Valley start-up introduced a last mile
Internet service dubbed Surf that is aimed at reaching household in
Eastlands in areas including Buru Buru, Jericho, Pangani and Umoja.
AccessKenya is just one of the players that have
been making investments in the segment. Liquid Telcom’s local unit has
invested Sh2 billion in its fibre optic network.
Liquid has been setting up free Wi-Fi hotspots in Nairobi, Nakuru, Mombasa, Kisumu, Eldoret, Kajiado and Nyeri.
The firm recently won contracts to set up an e-payment system in Kwale County and has also provided wireless network in Kilifi.
The firm recently won contracts to set up an e-payment system in Kwale County and has also provided wireless network in Kilifi.
In Nairobi, Liquid is offering a service similar to Surf dubbed Poa Internet which sells Wi-Fi in Kibera.
Kenya Power is set to pilot a viability test for
its fibre optic cables for business next month targeting Nairobi,
Kisumu, Nyeri, Meru, Mombasa, Nakuru and Eldoret.
With a targeted 120 households in town, the
electricity provider is banking on a successful partnership with a
service provider to roll out the pilot.
This comes following a 12- month pilot that has
been ongoing with Safaricom signed in April 2016 to connect 12,000 homes
to fibre.
The partnership saw Safaricom lease Kenya Power’s
fibre network. The state-owned utility firm earned Sh259.4 million in
revenue in the year ended June 2015 from leasing out extra capacity on
its fibre optic network and has been targeting to grow this to Sh1
billion this year.
Redundancy
The government has also been mulling over investing
in the Djibouti-Africa Regional Express (DARE), a proposed undersea
cable, which will provide Internet for the Horn of Africa region.
The cable will serve Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti, Yemen
and Somalia and will have a capacity of 20 terabytes. Slated for
completion next year, the cable will act as a redundancy to the existing
network of undersea cables and help meet the growing demand for
Internet capacity locally.
In 2015, Liquid announced plans to build its own 10,000
kilometre undersea cable linking up Africa to the Middle East and
Europe.
Telkom Kenya, which already has shareholding in
three undersea cables landing in Mombasa, has also indicated plans for
further investment.
The East African Marine Cable System (TEAMS)
expanded its capacity in 2015 growing it from 120 Gigabytes per second
(GbPs) to 720 GbPs.
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