[kictanet] Reminder: Policy Brief - Mobile Data Plans in Kenya

Tue May 9 08:21:35 EAT 2017

Dear Listers,

This is to kindly remind you to comment on the policy brief that examines
which mobile data plans people use in Kenya drafted by the Alliance for
Affordable Internet <http://a4ai.org/>. The full draft of the policy brief
is also linked at the end of the summary.

Our results indicate that there are a few significant policy implications.
We kindly ask you to review the policy brief linked below and leave your
comments and suggestions and/or send comments directly to me @
berhan.taye at webfoundation.org by *12 May 2017*.

We are grateful for any comment and feedback you may be able to provide.

---

*Mobile Data Plans in Kenya *

In this policy brief, we explore the level of Internet access Kenyan women
and men have via their mobile phones. Using a quota sampling approach, we
administered a set of mobile phone-based surveys to 500 female and 500 male
Kenyans that use the Internet on their cell phones.[1] We classify mobile
data bundles offered by Safaricom, Airtel Kenya, and Orange Kenya as
full-cost, service specific, and zero-rated data packages.[2]

Our result indicates that *women, in general, are more likely to use
full-cost data bundles and pay the full advertised amount for their data
than men *(when controlling for age, education, employment, and other
factors) - 74% of Kenyan women use full-cost plans, while only 67% of men
use the same package. However, *even though women prefer to pay for the
advertised price of a data plan, they buy the smallest data bundles when
compared to men*.[3]  For instance,  35% of women buy 150MB of data,
spending less than 199Ksh weekly,  while only 24.7% of men resort to the
cheapest data bundles. Women also tend to buy 350MB and 1024MB more
frequently.[4] However, men categorically buy data bundles that are larger
than 1GB  when compared to women.  This finding is a significant indicator
of the limited spending power of Kenyan women and their ability to purchase
mobile data packages and connect to the digital world.

Moreover, we also find that the reverse is true for service-specific and
zero-rated data plans: *more men prefer to use service-specific and
zero-rated services than women.*[5]  15% and 2.8% of men use
service-specific and zero-rated data bundles while only 4.4% and 1% of
women use these bundles, respectively. This result indicates that men are
more likely to use cheaper and subsidized data packages that offer access
to a few websites and apps. This is possibly because in some cases (e.g.,
sports tv data bundles) the services appeal more to men.

In sum, we postulate that these findings have a few policy implications:
first, our analysis raises questions about why there should be different
patterns in mobile data consumption between men and women. To better
understand this it is essential that the Communications Authority of Kenya
mandates operators and its institutions to gender disaggregate the data
they publish. Second, seeing that women can only afford to buy the smallest
data bundles, it is essential that we pursue policy and regulatory reform
to lower industry cost structures which can help improve affordability for
all. Lastly, to the extent where service-specific and zero-rated programs
are allowed under the Kenyan laws and related net neutrality principles,
the content of service-specific and zero-rated programs should better
target the needs of both women and men.

For more details, please refer to the draft full policy brief here
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1C_wAlfHwgoaIURrp3DR_oBs3sd0FKRsxSeWn_MJMvW4/edit?usp=sharing>
.

------------------------------

[1] We used mobile phone Internet users as our primary focus because 99% of
Internet subscriptions are via mobile phones in Kenya
<http://www.ca.go.ke/images/downloads/PUBLICATIONS/ANNUALREPORTS/Annual%20Report%20for%20the%20Financial%20Year%202015-2016.pdf>.
Surveys were carried out between January-March 2016.

[2] Full-cost data bundle  customers pay the full advertised amount for a
data bundle and can access the entire content of the web; Service specific
subscribers  pay a cheaper or subsidized price and access very limited
websites and apps like Facebook and Whatsapp; Zero-rated data plans are
free, and the content is limited to zero-rated websites like  Wikipedia and
Facebook Zero.

[3] The data bundles offered by the MNOs range from 150MB to 6144MB and
cost between 199Ksh and 1000Ksh.

[4] Data bundles that women buy more than men are all data packages
provided by Safaricom.

[5] When holding age, education, employment, and other factors at a
constant, this finding still holds true.

*--*
*Berhan Taye *
Ford-Mozilla Open Web Fellow
+1 347 445 1968
@btayeg <http://twitter.com/btayeg>
Subalterntones.wordpress.com <http://subalterntones.wordpress.com/>
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