[kictanet] Growth in internet subscription-interrogating the CCK report

Fri Apr 19 21:17:54 EAT 2013

Walubengo,
Thank you for raising these pertinent questions.  I had the privilege of
talking to four young Kenyan developers this afternoon.  They had sought
an appointment to discuss the increasing difficulty in accessing
affordable internet.  Most telcos have moved from their unlimited offers
and confined these youth to unaffordable connectivity.

Some have resulted to stealing internet through VPN and anonymzed IP
addresses.  They indeed demonstrated how it is done.  They wanted the
Government to seek means of providing affordable internet.  They of course
do not want to be on the wrong side of the law but they also understand
that if this continues, it will undermine growth in the sector.  I made a
phone call to two CEOs and indeed they confirmed that there are challenges
with broadband thefts.  Although we have agreed to meet next week there
points we have raised before that can effectively deal with such issues.

First we must recognize that the growth in internet penetration in Kenya
is as a result of availability of broadband in most parts of the country. 
Efforts to enable widespread access have failed simply because we are not
taking enough risk.  Several years after developing infrastructure sharing
policy, we still see many players laying their own fibre optic networks. 
Some parts like Parklands have more than five different fibre cables laid.
 We have also failed to take advantage of emerging technologies such as
LTE and White Space.  You may recall we were the first in Africa to
announce the deployment of LTE under a shared infrastructure framework but
because of dillydallying and retrogressive tendencies we still want to
wait for the maturity of the technology.  In the mean time Tanzania and
South Africa has gone forward.

Our success thus far is born out of taking great risks but this is not
happening as technical officers hide behind nonsensical jargon.  It may
sound as though I am getting frustrated but I intend to deal with these
issues properly in order to revive our march to universal access to
internet.  We are so close to realizing universal access to knowledge
(especially now when the President has committed to enabling children to
access technology) yet so far if we revert to the old public service
mentality.

More than 75% of the population in this country is youth.  This is a great
resource especially when they leverage on technology to earn a living.  We
must therefore facilitate them through enabling policy interventions but
not frustrate them to the extent of stealing broadband.  Under a shared
infrastructure framework we can attain 100% internet penetration in which
case more revenue to MNOs and more well to do people instead stifling
growth now.

Ndemo.

> @Wambua,
>
> Good report from CCK.  Just a few questions and would appreciate some
> answers from CCK and ofcourse any other volunteered sources on this
> esteemed list.
>
> 1. Kenya reported 9.5m Internet subscribers as at Dec 2012 but only 1m are
> on broadband (with data rates above 256Kbs up/down).  Shouldn't we be
> concerned that only 1m Kenyans can access (lets leave out "afford" for
> another day) multimedia content online? I thought 3G licenses were given
> out to about 3 operators? Is it that most Operators have not deployed 3G
> services and those who have, may be doing so only in selected urban areas?
> What is the regulator doing to motivate or bully operators to widely
> deploy broadband services?
>
>
> 2.Closely related to the above, I notice we have an impressive (by
> regional standards) total size of 906GB International link to the
> Internet. However, we are using only 36% of this capacity. Is the lack of
> a mature domestic broadband network suppressing demand on the
> international links? What exactly is our "domestic" bandwidth capacity and
> how much of it are we using? This should be an important statistic in
> future since it can show us if there is congestion at domestic level which
> in turn maybe suppressing usage/uptake at international level.
> Furthermore, it can begin to give interesting statistics like how much of
> our internet traffic is local vs international - something the Kenyan IXP
> tries to collect but may not have the full picture since not all
> operators/asp/isp are on board.
>
> 3. Finally, I notice the Revenue to Investments ratios in the data market
> dropped from 148B/29B in 2011 to 98B/26B in 2012. What are the
> implications? It appears investments (read expansion and increased quality
> of our networks) is slowing down - yet usage/uptake of broadband networks
> remains extremely low ( 1m users).  Looks like Operators have local
> capacities but no one to use them? Is this a Price issue? Or maybe a
> content issue? - e.g. why should a farmer in Bungoma get online? Or
> perhaps - what Safaricom does not like to hear - a market failure arising
> from the dominant position that Safaricom has successfully worked itself
> into?
>
> I hope these are not too many questions to handle...
>
> walu.
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: "Wambua, Christopher" <Wambua at cck.go.ke>
> To: jwalu at yahoo.com
> Cc: Consumer and Public Affairs <CPA at cck.go.ke>; KICTAnet ICT Policy
> Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 5:28 PM
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] FW: Growth in internet subscription outpaces
> voice.doc
>
>
>
>
> Ali,
>  
> The report is available on our website at
> http://www.cck.go.ke/resc/downloads/Sector_statistics_for_Quarter_2_-_2012-2013.pdf 
>  
> Thanks for the compliment.
>  
> Best regards
> Christopher Wambua
> Manager/Communications
> Consumer and Public Affairs Division
> Communications Commission of Kenya
> P.O. Box 14448, NAIROBI 00800
> KENYA
>  
>  
>  
> From:Ali Hussein [mailto:ali at hussein.me.ke]
> Sent: Thursday, April 18, 2013 3:53 PM
> To: Wambua, Christopher
> Cc: Consumer and Public Affairs; KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> Subject: Re: [kictanet] FW: Growth in internet subscription outpaces
> voice.doc
>  
> Wambua
>
> Great statistics! The country is moving forward.
>
> Please send us a link where we can access the full report.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Ali Hussein
> CEO, 3mice interactive media ltd
> Partner, Telemedia Africa Ltd
>  
> Tel: +254713601113
> Twitter: @AliHKassim
> Skype: abu-jomo
> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
> Blog: www.alyhussein.com
>
>
> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are purely
> mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of the
> organizations that I work with.
>  
> On Thu, Apr 18, 2013 at 3:31 PM, Wambua, Christopher <Wambua at cck.go.ke>
> wrote:
>  
> Listers,
>  
>   P  R  E  S  S   R  E  L  E  A  S E E
>  
>  
>  
> 18th April 2013
>  
>  
> Growth rate of internet/data surpasses voice
>  
> The number of internet users in Kenya increased to 16.2 million in the
> period between October 1 and December 31 last year, representing a growth
> of 11.6 %.
>  
> According to the CCK Sector Quarterly Statistical Report (2nd Quarter of
> 2012/13 FY) released today, the number of Internet subscribers in the
> country rose from 8.5million in the 1st quarter of this financial year to
> 9.4 million by the end of December 2012, posting an increase of 11.5%. 
> The number of Internet subscribers increased by 75.1% compared to same
> period in the previous year.
>  
> Mobile data/internet continued to dominate the Internet market
> contributing 99% of the total internet/data subscriptions in the country.
>  
>  
> Internet penetration went up by 4.3% to reach 41.1% up from 36.8% recorded
> during the previous period. However, the number of broadband subscribers
> declined to 1,002,701 from 1,006,071 posted during the previous period
> mainly due to a reduction in the number of fixed terrestrial broadband
> subscribers.
>  
> The report attributes the growth in the Internet/data market segment to
> international internet connectivity (used) bandwidth that has continued to
> spiral upwards. During the quarter under review the international internet
> used bandwidth rose to 328,641 Mbps from 278,329 Mbps posted during the
> previous period, representing an increase of 18.1 percent.
>  
> Meanwhile, the total number of mobile subscribers in Kenya rose to 30.7
> million, representing a marginal growth of 1.0 percent from the previous
> quarter. As observed during the previous period, the rate of growth has
> slowed down as the market appears saturated and tending towards maturity.
> Pre-paid subscribers continued to dominate the mobile sub-sector
> contributing 99% of the total number of subscribers. 
>  
> Mobile penetration on the other hand increased to 78% during the same
> period up from 77.2% recorded during the first quarter. All mobile
> operators recorded positive growth in service subscription beside Telkom
> (Orange) which lost a total of 609,321 customers, representing a decline
> of 19.7% during the quarter under review.
>  
> The number of letters sent locally declined by 2.0 percent to reach 17.3
> million down from 17.7 million letters sent during the previous period.
> Compared to the same period of the previous year, a decline of 11.8
> percent was recorded.
>  
> The number of international incoming letters grew by 20.9 percent during
> the period to reach 191,672 letters from 158,549 received during the
> previous period. Similarly international outgoing letters reached 1.9
> million from 1.6 million during the previous period, representing 18.1
> percent increase.
>  
> The full report is attached.
>  
>  
> Christopher Wambua
> Manager/Communications
> Consumer and Public Affairs Division
> Communications Commission of Kenya
> P.O. Box 14448, NAIROBI 00800
> KENYA
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and
> development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or
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> The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet) is a multi-stakeholder platform
> for people and institutions interested and involved in ICT policy and
> regulation. The network aims to act as a catalyst for reform in the ICT
> sector in support of the national aim of ICT enabled growth and
> development.
>
> KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors
> online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth,
> share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do
> not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.