[kictanet] The Cables and more...

Mon Dec 6 18:06:28 EAT 2010

Lucy,
If we look at broadband by households, the situation is even more dire -  
0.06%. Most broadband offerings are in the upmarket areas (WiMax, FTTH and  
maybe some ADSL. Also, some CDMA dial up speeds barely qualify as  
broadband). Most BB connections therefore are for businesses (VSAT, WiMax,  
ADSL, etc). The other issue has to do with the way service providers market  
their products - and this is not peculiar to Kenya. I have read about  
similar situations happening in the UK  
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3563320.stm) and even RSA. An  
operator may state that they are offering a broadband connection, say on  
WiMax without really disclosing the contention ratio. Even a 1 Mbps  
connection with a 1:4 contention ratio (which works out to abt 256kbps) is  
not always assured except at off-peak periods. So, even after factoring in  
these "broadband" services, the connections are not that many. Not many  
consumers are aware they can do speed tests on their connections either.

if I may quote a wikipaedia entry

"the 2006 OECD report[2] is typical by defining broadband as having  
download data transfer rates equal to or faster than 256 kbit/s, while the  
United States (US) Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as of 2010,  
defines "Basic Broadband" as data transmission speeds of at least 4  
megabits per second (Mbps), or 4,000,000 bits per second, downstream (from  
the Internet to the user's computer) and 1 Mbit/s upstream (from the user's  
computer to the Internet".

If your nephew has a 3G handset, and on a network offering 3G, then yes, he  
is on broadband but if its a mobile phone (and not a USB modem) then it  
does not really count as a shared household connection. If we were to look  
at the total number of mobile 3G subscribers, as stated before, it would  
not really make a dent in the overall broadband penetration.

On Dec 6, 2010 5:11pm, Lucy Kimani <lkimani at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Francis,

> You are correct, the IDC statistics might give a better picture if they  
> reflected broadband adoption for households to include families who may  
> be sharing a connection as well as broadband on mobile devices using my  
> nephew as an example -- he is on Facebook 24/7 using his mobile these  
> days, and I am not sure at what speeds. Is there a standard definition  
> of "broadband penetration" in the industry?

> Lucy

> --- On Mon, 12/6/10, Francis Hook francis.hook at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Francis Hook francis.hook at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] The Cables and more...
> To: lkimani at yahoo.com
> Cc: "KICTAnet KICTAnet" kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Date: Monday, December 6, 2010, 3:07 AM

> 1 - IDC measures broadband connections as those with a speed of at least  
> 256kbps (ideally it should be 512kbps).

> 2 - In Kenya, total broadband penetration (excluding mobile broadband  
> which we presently do not count - but will from 2011) as of end 2009  
> stood at 0.15%. A really large chunk of this comprises business BB  
> connections.

> 3 - Presently Mobile BB may not really ramp up the figures (at least not  
> more than a quarter of a percentage point ie 0.25% ) much since;

> a) the devices (USB Modems/Smartphones) that allow speeds of >256kbps are  
> not that many (and we will soon be tracking these as well),

> b) The present coverage of 3G also distorts the true measure of MOBILE  
> broadband

> Rgds

> Francis

> On 5 December 2010 19:56, pkukubo at ict.go.ke> wrote:

> True
> Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone from Zain Kenya

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Lucy Kimani lkimani at yahoo.com>

> Sender: kictanet-bounces+pkukubo=ict.go.ke at lists.kictanet.or.keDate: Sun,  
> 5 Dec 2010 07:05:31
> To: pkukubo at ict.go.ke>
> Cc: KICTAnet KICTAnetkictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>

> Subject: Re: [kictanet] The Cables and more...

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> --
> Francis Hook
> +254 733 504561

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