Workers lay fibre optic cables in Nairobi. PHOTO | FILE
Developers may soon be required to include Internet cabling provisions in their building plans if a proposed law is included in the Infrastructure Protection Bill, currently at the public consultation stage.
The Infrastructure Protection Bill, authored by the ministries of Information, Energy and Transport, on Tuesday held its first public consultation forum where the telecommunications operators also proposed that a penalty and a relocation fee to be imposed on road contractors who move their cables.
At the moment, telecommunication infrastructure such as fibre optic cable is not recognised as essential infrastructure as is the case with water and electricity and as such, is not a compulsory requirement during the approval of building designs or plans.
The operators, however, say the vacuum created by lack of a supportive law has allowed landlords and tenants to ask for exorbitant fees to connect the buildings with fibre optic cables, as a result increasing their capital expenses.
Fred Matiang’i, the ICT secretary, said on Tuesday the Bill is aimed at integrating policies in the three sectors, energy, transport and ICT should be ready before July.
“Every year we lose between Sh1.5 billion and Sh2 billion from damages on power transmission lines, transformers, and fibre optic cables cuts, this is what we want to address through the Bill,” Mr Matiang’i told participants in yesterday’s forum.
High access fees charged by county governments and property owners were also said to be frustrating efforts to deepen broadband Internet penetration.
Market surveys show that property owners or their agents are demanding between Sh21,000 to Sh300,000 per month to give service providers access to their buildings and mount telecommunication equipment.
Counties such as Mombasa charges Sh100 per metre of cable which is laid out through its way leaves, while Nanyuki has set a Sh600 fee. Nairobi, which has attracted most of the investments, charges Sh20 per metre.
Mr Matiang’i said landlords and estate agents’ demands were against the push to bring down the cost of connectivity for larger Internet uptake.
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