Kenya’s largest telecommunication company by market share Safaricom Ltd has announced it will reallocate funds to build up its fixed-data network to connect homes to the Internet saying the move was driven by growing local demand to download or stream content online.
“We have been a bit lazy in growing our data business,” The company’s chief executive Bob Collymore told Reuters news agency.
He said that the company’s investments in the fixed data network were a reallocation of its budget and would not add to its planned capital expenditure Ksh 32 billion as of March 2016.
Related; Safaricom Market Share Increases To Nearly 70%
“The big investment is in fiber. We are certainly putting more in fiber than we thought we would do … It is a change in priorities…That is a cheaper way of delivering the data requirements of homes because ideally you want to have unlimited data,” he said adding that they had already connected 6,000 homes to its new fixed-data network, using fiber and poles.
Kenya’s fixed data market is currently dominated by Wananchi Group’s Zuku brand and Jamii Telecoms.
(Reuters, Kenyan Wall Street)
