MAP > Internet Providers in Kenya

When it comes to Kenya’s telecommunications market, it has experienced some considerable changes in response to the increased competition, the improved international connectivity as well as the rapid developments in the mobile market. Landing of the four fiber optic international submarine cables in the recent years have reduced the cost of the phone calls as well as the internet access, hence allowing the internet services to be able to afford to a greater proportion of the population. The sector’s regulator has gone ahead and reduced interconnection tariffs as well as implemented a wide range of the regulations that are aimed at developing more competition.

Incumbent fixed line telco by the name Telkom Kenya that was under the management of Orange Group from the year 2007 until the time when it was sold to the Helios in the year 2015 has continued to struggle to be able to make headway in the competitive market. The numerous competitors have been rolling out the national as well as metropolitan fiber backbone networks as well as wireless access networks to deliver the services to the population centers across the country. Numerous fiber infrastructure sharing the agreements have already forged, and then the number of fiber broadband connections almost tripled annually to the year 2017 on September.

The mobile market has continued to progress steadily, well supported by the mobile subscriber base of close to 41 million by the year 2018. Some of the market consolidations got to occur the following acquisition by the Airtel as well as Safaricom of Essar Telecom’s youMobile business. While all the network operators have been able to invest in the mobile technologies as well as infrastructure upgrades to be able to support the mobile data services, the competition has nonetheless presented some challenges to the profitability with the uneven revenue development reported in the recent years. But, Safaricom has enjoyed huge gowth backed by the popular M-PESA payment platform. The market dominance, however, has been able to encourage the government to go ahead and consider as well as dismiss recommendations from the 2016 report which Safaricom split off the M-PESA business from the voice as well as the data offerings.

To be able to encourage the development of the LTE services, the government has gone ahead and pursued an open access approach. The disputes centered on the license fees got to delay the launch of the LTE services by the MNOs, though they have continued to invest in the infrastructure as well as technology upgrades using the trial licenses.