Technology

Able Wireless rides on quality of service, choice and cost

cables

Fibre optic cables: The model is best suited for residential areas with a certain critical mass that would fully utilise the mesh network and localised points of presence. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

I first met Kahenya Kamunyu at Kenya’s first BarCamp held at Jacaranda Hotel way back in 2008 and he stood out as an opinionated bold thinker. He dropped off my radar only to walk into the Nailab one afternoon in 2013 with a curious little box and say to me, I have got something to show you.

The curious little box was a Raspberry Pi inspired content streaming box that run on Linux and pulled content from a secure digital (SD) card from which he gave an impressive demonstration of the imagined future way before the early majority middle class Kenya became familiar with over the top content providers such as Hulu and Netflix.

Fast-forward to April 2016 and Able Wireless the company led by Kahenya has gone live in Ngumba and Mbindah estates off Thika Road with over 1,000 clients having trialled the service. Currently, they are offering affordable connectivity and content service riding on the back of a contiguous WiFi network and is piloting fiber to the home for select customers.

The model is best suited for residential areas with a certain critical mass that would fully utilise the mesh network and localised points of presence.

Far removed from its Raspberry Pi and Linux origins, Able Wireless’ set top box is now custom made running on modified 4.X Android base dubbed BlackBox OS1.

The network backend consists of a physical fibre and copper mesh network that is inter-linked, eliminating a single point of failure and creating multiple alternative data transport routes.

The streaming device connects to Able Wireless’ BlackBIRD Content Delivery Network (CDN) that is also distributed and accelerates video content through their network from any content provider locally or internationally.

Kenya is still ill equipped for the new generation of makers who are building out hardware products and this saw a great percentage of time and effort spent on designing, testing and producing the units, from the minimum viable product to the live in market service.

Able Wireless has burnt well over Sh10 million in capital financed primarily from traditional loans with secondary sources from the company’s own directors; whose story will be told another day but one that lays testament to the grit that techpreneurs must have if they are to succeed on their terms.

We still have thousands of kilometres of unlit fibre and unconsumed bandwidth with thousands of consumers ready to cut the cord and consume content on demand.

Audiences are fragmented and traditional media with its scheduling model do not fit well into the lifestyle of the urban consumer.

Quality of service, choice and cost are the main pillars that Able Wireless seems to have thought through.

If it can scale across urban neighbourhoods keeping its overheads low and network solid, they will have indeed broken into a very lucrative market of the always connected consumer.

Mbugua is CEO of Symbiotic |www.mbuguanjihia.com

@mbuguanjihia