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Safaricom to cede 30pc capacity on 4G network

wangusi

Mr Francis Wangusi, CA director general. PHOTO | FILE

Safaricom will be required to cede at least 30 per cent capacity of its planned 4G network to rivals, the telecommunications regulator has said.

The policy move is intended to give other telcos a toehold on the high speed Internet grid.

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) director-general Francis Wangusi, said in an interview on Wednesday that it has set infrastructure-sharing as a pre-condition for licensing Safaricom’s planned roll out of the 4G network.

Safaricom has announced that it intends to utilise extra capacity from the 4G frequencies allocated to it for a police communication system to roll out 4G Internet in 15 towns across the country.

“One of the conditions is that they must spare 30 per cent of the capacity to other operators to be shared on a commercial basis,” said Mr Wangusi.

Safaricom on Wednesday said it is yet to reach a final agreement with the regulator on terms of the 4G rollout and as such could not comment further on the matter.

Fourth generation (4G) network that offers high-speed Internet and capability for improved video streaming for heavy data users such as hospitals practising telemedicine.

“It is early days and we are still in discussions with the Communications Authority. We can comment in detail thereafter,” said Safaricom’s corporate affairs director Nzioka Waita in a response. 

READ: Safaricom gets Sh6.7bn waiver in police deal

The government has been floating the idea of rolling out the 4G technology through a consortium for the past two years but delays in grouping telecommunication firms interested in the bid has seen Safaricom decide to go it alone.

The infrastructure sharing condition set for Safaricom by the regulator will enable small operators to save on capital expenditure and also reduce the time they would have taken if they were either to wait for the government led project or do it on their own.

An interview with a number of operators who had been waiting for the government initiative on a joint rollout of the 4G technology indicates that some no longer consider it viable while others said it does not fit in their business strategy.

MTN Business on Tuesday said the deployment of the joint consortium was no longer viable.

“Technically the joint roll out of LTE collapsed the moment Safaricom was issued with a 60 megahertz frequency spectrum to roll out the national police security contract while what they needed was 5 Megahertz, this automatically locked out other operators, we are not pursuing it anymore,” said Tom Omariba, managing director of MTN Business Kenya.

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