<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Listers</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">The yumobile CEO is crying foul regarding the 'stringent' conditions put forward by the CAK to enable Safaricom (who now say they have pulled out of the deal) and Airtel divide up the moribund telco among themselves. To quote him:-</div><div><br><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“We have been fighting to get the regulator to enforce infrastructure sharing in the industry for years. This never happened until yuMobile announced an acquisition deal and we don’t understand why. If these conditions were enforced earlier, we wouldn’t have contemplated leaving the market in the first place,” the CEO noted.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><a href="http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/smartcompany/Regulator-on-the-spot-as-yuMobile-deal-stalls-/-/1226/2297090/-/qf9n90/-/index.html">http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/smartcompany/Regulator-on-the-spot-as-yuMobile-deal-stalls-/-/1226/2297090/-/qf9n90/-/index.html</a></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Is the CAK justified in putting such conditions on a commercial transaction? </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Besides the infrastructure and spectrum which of course is public property leased out to the telcos how about the condition that Safaricom must share its Mpesa agent network? Isn't this akin to the CBK forcing banks to share their branch networks with other less branch endowed players? Is this even within the framework of regulation?</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">By now I think the mobile money networks should been seamlessly interoperable and this in my humble opinion is what CAK should have forced the telcos to have done.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">So now yumobile is caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">I hope this situation gets resolved fairly quickly because there are several thousand Kenyans who will be adversely affected if it doesn't.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);"><b>Ali Hussein</b></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);">+254 770 906375 / 0713 601113</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Twitter: @AliHKassim</span></p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font></font></span><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Skype: abu-jomo</span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">LinkedIn: <a href="http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim" target="_blank">http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim</a><a href="http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: none;"></span></a></span></p><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font></font></span><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"></p><font><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Blog: <a href="http://www.alyhussein.com/" target="_blank">www.alyhussein.com</a></span><br></font></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.292969); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469); "><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">"I fear the day technology will surpass human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots". ~ Albert Einstein</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);"><br></span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Sent from my iPad</span></div></body></html>