Workers lay fibre optic cables in Nairobi. Telecom firms have clashed over the best methods of building and sharing infrastructure. FILE
The just concluded East Africa Com conference held in Nairobi has reignited the debate about whether telecoms firms should be compelled to share infrastructure as opposed to each building its own.
Mickael Ghossein, the Telkom Kenya CEO and who was one of the panelists, sparked the debate when he accused Google Kenya of harbouring intentions of investing in its telecommunication infrastructure locally, a move he said should not be allowed.
Ghossein’s sentiments come against the backdrop of a move by a number of telecommunication providers, such as Safaricom and MTN Business, who were leasing Internet capacity from third parties but have now cut the links and instead investing in their own infrastructure.
The debate has split the operators, with some like Wananchi Group defending those investing in own infrastructure and Soliton Telemec supporting Telkom Kenya.
“The country needs to come up with an open access policy on the telecommunication infrastructure or else we will continue seeing duplication of the same. We have to look for ways that ensure businesses offering these services are not threatened,” said Mr Ghossein.
Telkom Kenya is among the biggest telecoms firms that have invested heavily in a fibre optic network and it also currently manages the National Optic Fibre Infrastructure (NOFBI) on behalf of the government. Others carriers are Kenya Data Networks, Jamii Telecoms and AccessKenya.
Joe Mucheru, Google Sub-Saharan Africa ambassador as well as Country Manager Kenya, denied that Google Kenya intends to build its own infrastructure, saying it buys the connectivity it uses from other providers or enters into partnerships.
But he said the firm may be forced to look for alternatives if telecommunication firms maintain their position of scrapping unlimited Internet.
“We don’t have such plans. However, recently you saw a CEO of one leading mobile firms saying on a TV interview that his firm will never bring back the unlimited Internet on its network. If operators maintain such a stand we will have to look for alternatives,” said Mr Mucheru.
While some operators are sharing telecommunications masts and fibre networks, there is no national policy that guides such agreements, which are left mainly to market demands but which some infrastructure providers say should be guided by a policy.
“The regulator needs to come in with a policy that will ensure that this duplication comes to an end. ITU (International Telecommunication Union, which our regulator is a member of, has various standards on how this can be done,” said Abdirahman Sheik, CEO Soliton Telemec.
Richard Bell, the CEO of Wananchi Group, defended firms investing in their own infrastructure but said it would have been much easier for them to consider buying out firms that already offer such services than starting from scratch.
Human capital
“Those who are advancing the theories of shared infrastructure are mainly government officers or civil societies who don’t understand the business we are in. Operators only enter in such agreements where it makes business sense,” said Mr Bell.
“It is easier to have control of network by buying out a firm than investing in the same infrastructure from the scratch.”
The Information and Communications permanent secretary Bitange Ndemo in a previous interview with the Business Daily warned that some of the firms investing in their own infrastructures risk running into more network maintenance challenges than they are experiencing currently.
“Some of the operators have not factored in the issue of maintenance of these networks they are putting and currently don’t have the internal human capacity to handle this, which in the long run may see them encountering even worse network challenges,” said Dr Ndemo.
The government is currently working on a consortium for the 4G network to push the shared infrastructure. The ownership structure is a Private-Public Partnership, where the government and the operators will own stakes in the network equivalent to the capital they inject.
