[kictanet] Kenya: Consumers furious over high internet prices

[Sam Gatere]

woooooo drama! Bwana Hatari let me start by saying pole sana! you definately
are very unhappy Internet consumer! however in the same breath a seperation
of issues is important. MJ is not Safaricom and Safaricom is not MJ. In my
humble opinion I would like to imagine that both (MJ and Safaricom) are
independent enties in as viwed by the goverment and by the law. So the more
approriate entity to lash out to would be Safaricom and Not MJ.

On another point just this week the EA-IGF was on for three days at the
Jacaranda Hotel, the details of this forum were made public on this forum
and this forum was possibly one of the best places to voice this concerns
about the ICT related issues form pricing to QoS (quality of Service) Dr.
Ndemo among other, Members of parliament both Kenyan and from the East
African region were present. If Bwana Hatari's sentiments were raised in
this forum on Day one I assure someone would have given them a good ear.
Another important thing that came out was that we need a strong consumer
Advocacy group that has a "face" and we can deal with this issues head on! I
have not heard any one Bash AccessKenya For example with their "double your
bandwidth for the same price" campaign... This basically shows they still
want to charge the same despite enjoying low BULK bandwidth cost. KDN or
UUNet (I stand to be corrected) annoucned a 90% reduction on bandwidth from
$5000 for 1Mb to little over $500 for the same.

The other thing we may want to define is what is cheap or affordable
Internet access? with the way things are now I doubt any telco or ISP will
lower their rates remember they to are in this to make money and also
consider that the global community is in recession. Some for example
safaricom are a 20% stakeholder in the Teams cable which was a capital
intensive venture!  They guys who ought to be bashed really in my view are
the media houses and news content developers if they do not give news that
shows that there is a big Internet market in the country who will want to
lower their prices in light of all the competition?

In my humble projection I do not foresee drastic price drops due to the
landing of two fibre cables in the cost. There is just not enough
competition. Maybe by March 2010 when EASSy lands and the Lion2 from Reunion
Islands we shall see more serious competition. Also we need to understand
the Last Mile solution also determines your final access cost! Maybe just
maybe innovations such as that seen with triple play operator ZUKU might
just be what will make Broadband Connectivity more accessible and possible
more affordable!

A seperation of the issues, personalities and corporations is essential then
we may start to see some reasonable results.


Kind Regards


SammyG

On Thu, Sep 10, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Onyango Hatari <onyango at inbox.com> wrote:

> What MJ is displaying is arrogance which is being permitted by Dr Ndemo.
> The arrogance where a poor investor can come to our country, borrow money
> from our banks and then after getting rich close shop the same day like GTV
> without anyone questioning.
>
> The arrogance where Michael Joseph can be brought here by the British
> masters and then forced upon us and after being rich buy guns and start
> sponsoring Kenyans like its happening in Isiolo where Lewa owners where MJ
> is a big owner of land is sponsoring violence and killing and maiming
> Kenyans and then we say that we have tribalism in Kenya.
>
> Tribalism is being fuelled by racist and arrogant people like Michael
> Joseph and if its hard to see how Michael Joseph who in January was just
> waxing lyrical how much we will save on Fibre Optics is now arrogant to teh
> core then we need to review our stakes.
>
> We dont need such cheap arrogance and Michael Joseph must be told so. How
> can you unilaterally decide without involving shareholders that tehy must
> get money through Mpesa? How can you just see Kenyans as people who eat and
> do nothing for the company while they gave yuo teh capital to expand?
>
> Lets be realistic here. this is arrogance and impunity to teh core and we
> must face it headon. Alex, ukitaka backup you got me. We will continue
> highlighting this until it sinks in the head of everybody taht we have
> Hyenas masquerading as mother Teresa
>
> Internet cost must go down and we support those fighting for this in
> facebook, and through other social media
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: alexgakuru.lists at gmail.com
> > Sent: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 15:57:54 +0300
> > To: onyango at inbox.com
> > Subject: Re: [kictanet] Kenya: Consumers furious over high internet
> > prices
> >
> > Prejudged you is not at all correct
> >
> > You were on local media news days ago on this issue. I immediately
> > asked you to react to my letter which you chose not to citing away on
> > travel, and busy with business. As of today, when I asked you when
> > specifically you would respond, you reverted with a two-word email
> > "Next week".
> >
> > You see, our advocacy for quality, affordable, fairly-priced
> > communication is not dependent on any service providers schedules or
> > their ability to respond, via email,  to our requests for
> > information.
> >
> > And in any case, we have the right to state our position regardless
> > and I am very sure that you can respond well via various media.
> >
> > regards,
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Sep 9, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Michael Joseph<MJoseph at safaricom.co.ke>
> > wrote:
> >> I see you have prejudged us
> >>
> >> Regards
> >>
> >> Michael
> >> CEO
> >> Safaricom
> >>
> >> On 9 Sep 2009, at 15:35, "Gakuru Alex" <alexgakuru.lists at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> <http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/410/16/39787.html>
> >>>
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