Kenya ICT sector update- infrastructure

ICT infrastructure investment in Kenya is low compared to other countries in Africa like South Africa and Egypt.
 
There is contention between the government and the private sector over who should invest in infrastructure.
 
The government says it has to invest in infrastructure to protect the public from a profit-driven private sector while the private sector thinks the government should be a consumer and leave investment to those who can do it cost effectively.
 
“The government is only doing this because the private sector has not taken the lead,” said Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information and Communication.
 
The PS was speaking last year at an ICT stakeholder meeting to discuss the government’s role in infrastructure development. Ndemo defended the government’s decision to invest in Optic Fibre Cable (OFC) infrastructure instead of galvanizing its position as a consumer of services.
 
The four fibre optic cables - TEAMs, EASSy SEACOM and Flag - offer the major infrastructure talking points in the region. The East African coast is the only coast that is not connected with the world through the fibre optic cable.
 
SEACOM and TEAMs offer the best hope for connection with the expected operations in early 2009. This is expected to lower the cost of bandwidth.
 
Currently, the country’s connection is via satellite, which is expensive and limits many businesses.
 
Apart from the cable, Kenya has two GSM companies providing service mainly in urban areas. Because the remote areas do not offer profit prospects, investment is limited or none, cutting out part of the population from communication.
 
The two mobile phone companies invest in their facilities. There is no company that purely invests in these facilities. Instead, each company hires a contractor to lay the network for connecting base stations; the following day, another company is digging up the city seeking to lay the terrestrial fibre among other reasons.
 
Though the companies restore the pavements to their original form, the work is not always neat. This calls for a detailed focus on infrastructure investment, where a company can make it its core business.
 
Telkom Kenya, which has a monopoly in fixed line, has not justified the monopoly, has not quenched people’s thirst for telephone services and is suffering from a bloated workforce and failure to capitalize on government favoritism.
 
In media, only Kenya Broadcasting Corporation (KBC) has TV and radio signals all over the country. Private stations are concentrated in urban areas. Community radio is not a widespread phenomenon, though we have Nairobi slum-based radio stations such as Koch FM (for Korogocho slums) and Ghetto FM (covering Majengo slums). The two stations are restricted to a 2-km radius.
ends