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Kenya Power eyes Sh1bn in county fibre optic cables expansion

POWER

Kenya Power technicians repair electricity lines. The firm is cashing in on growing high-speed Internet use. PHOTO | FILE

Electricity distributor Kenya Power plans to extend its fibre optic cable connections to cover all counties as it seeks to quadruple its earnings from the new revenue stream to Sh1 billion by the end of next year.

Kenya Power said it would by May pick a contractor to supply and install 1,300km of high-speed Internet wires along its electricity lines to expand on the existing 1,800km.

The State-owned utility firm earned Sh250.6 million revenue in year to June 2014 from leasing out extra capacity on its fibre optic network, income it now intends to grow to Sh1 billion by 2017.

“This is the third and last phase of our plan to have high-speed Internet cables in all counties across the country,” said Samuel Ndirangu, ICT general manager at Kenya Power.

“We expect to award the contract by the end of next month after which the contractor will have about eight months to complete installation works.”

Kenya Power has since 2010 fixed about 1,800km of optical fibre along its high-voltage power lines, traversing through 24 of Kenya’s 47 counties.

The new project will see the firm increase this coverage to most of the remaining counties, excluding areas like Mandera, Wajir, Moyale and Turkana that are not connected to the national electricity grid.

The power firm mainly uses the high-speed Internet network to manage its national grid.

Its goal is to install a reliable connection between Kenya Power’s county offices and the Nairobi head office.

The electricity firm does not, however, use all the capacity and has over the years been leasing out the extra capabilities to mobile telecommunication firms and Internet service providers.

READ: Kenya Power earns Sh251m from lease of fibre optic cables

Its current customers include Safaricom, Liquid Telecom, Jamii Telecommunications, Wananchi Group and Airtel. “Once the new lines are live, we shall only use about a third of the entire capacity and lease out the extra capacity,” Mr Ndirangu told the Business Daily on Friday.

Kenya Power in 2002 was licensed as a network facility provider by the communications sector regulator allowing it to its lease excess broadband capacity to players in the telecoms industry.

The company has since then invested heavily in this sector, with two earlier tenders seeing the firm connect a significant portion of the country including areas like Nairobi, Nyeri, Mombasa, Nanyuki and Eldoret.

Tender documents show that the latest project, whose value has not been disclosed, is in regional blocks of Central Rift, North Rift, West Kenya, North Eastern and Coast, Nairobi North, Nairobi South and Mount Kenya.

Kenya Power is cashing in on growing high-speed Internet use, evidenced by subscriptions that stand at more than 14 million.