Kenya - Fixed Broadband Market - Statistics and Analyses

Kenya's broadband market has been transformed by a combination of increased investments in network upgrades among the key providers as well as by the landing of four fibre-optic submarine cables. This vastly increased international bandwidth has led to significant fall in wholesale prices and this in turn has helped make broadband services affordable to a greater proportion of the population while also providing the key backhaul network for the burgeoning mobile broadband sector.

A number of companies including AccessKenya, Kenya Data Networks and Wananchi have become second-tier telcos by rolling out national and metropolitan fibre backbones and wireless broadband access networks. The cost of this work and the lower pricing which has resulted from competition has led to some merger activity in the market.

Several WiMAX deployments and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FttP) rollouts have been undertaken, which have pushed fast broadband connectivity to a greater number of subscribers in urban areas. Nevertheless, the vast majority of broadband subscribers are on mobile networks. Mobile network operators are concentrating investments on LTE, so enabling customers to take up a range of high-end data services and applications. A range of services including video-streaming, e-commerce, e-learning and e-government are evolving rapidly on the back of this improved infrastructure.

Key Developments:

Kenya launches the first of its micro satellites;
Government commits KES300 million to its free Wi-Fi project;
Kenya Power trials fibre access on its electricity network;
Liquid Telecom expands its FttP infrastructure;
International internet bandwidth continues to rise;
Government progresses with national broadband strategy;
Report update includes the regulator's market data to September 2018, operator data to Q3 2018, recent market developments.

Companies mentioned in this report include:

Telkom Kenya, Kenya Data Networks (KDN), Jamii Telecom, SimbaNet, Africa Online, Access Kenya (Dimension Data), Wananchi Online, MTN Business Kenya (UUNet), Swift Global, Internet Solutions Kenya (InterConnect), Safaricom (IGO Wireless, OneCom), Gilat Satellite Networks, Afsat Communications, Inmarsat, Indigo Telecom (Thuraya), Nation TV (NTV), Liquid Telecom.