Safaricom eyes 250 sites for 5G by end of year

Safaricom #ticker:SCOM wants to raise fifth-generation (5G) sites by up to 17 times by the end of the year, making the superfast services available to more subscribers in urban centres.

The leading telco which in March launched the 5G technology with 15 sites says it wants to raise this to up 250 sites and take the super-fast internet to nine towns.

The expansion will equip more individuals and enterprises with 5G for use at work, home and when on the move, helping Safaricom to tap into the burgeoning mobile internet use in the country.

Chief Finance Officer Dilip Pal says this has been catered for in the capital expenditure plans for the telco.

“When we started, we had about 15 sites where we have had the signal as we speak. This is expected to go up to about 100-250 sites by the end of the year,” said Mr Pal.

Safaricom in March launched the upgraded network in major urban centres including Nairobi, Kisumu, Kisii and Kakamega— all of which routinely witness increased data traffic.

The telco insists the technology will still be on trial basis and will not account for the big part of its capital spending for now.

Safaricom’s capital expenditure was Sh34.96 billion in the financial year ended March and expects it to rise to Sh40 billion by end of current financial year.

At the end of March, Safaricom had 5,526 2G base stations and 5,500 for 3G. Those of 4G grew 24.1 percent to 5,387 indicating that the telco is also deepening the focus on fourth generation sites.

Both Safaricom and its closest rival Airtel Kenya are in the race for the superfast internet, with priority given to urban centres such as Nairobi.

Airtel Kenya recently upgraded 600 network sites to meet 5G mobile internet services capabilities in readiness to roll out the superfast services in Nairobi, Mombasa and Malindi.

However, many of Kenya’s customers are still on 3G despite prices of cheapest 4G handsets now averaging at between Sh5,000 and Sh6,000.

High prices may be a put off for millions of subscribers willing to switching over from 4G phones to 5G despite the increased appetite for needs such as ultrahigh video resolution streaming to real-time 3D gaming.

Currently, 5G phones in Kenyan market are few and expensive. For instance, Huawei Mate 30 Pro retails at about Sh70,000 while the Huawei P40 goes for Sh98,000.