Its now been 6 months since Kenya finally went digital, and in these six months all I have seen is a gimmick – “Doubled your bandwidth for free”.

Dear ISP,

We are the customer! We are not stupid.

I have noted that there are only four major player in the industry at the moment – KDN, Access Kenya, Orange & Safaricom. They all provide the end user with internet access in one way or the other.

My main stress has been internet access for home users & SOHO’s

Safaricom - Safaricom’s main strength in the data market has without a doubt been the 3g modems that they have been selling for as little as 2000shs ($27). Almost everyone has a Safaricom line, and Safaricom banked in on this and started selling the 3g modems at a throw away price. They have provided bundles that are soft on everyone’s pocket in terms of cost of bundle but not usage. The more the use the more you pay. That is a major disadvantage as safaricom have really fast bandwidth and you may get carried away with your usage.

3g coverage is scattered and inconsistent. Safaricom customer support is extremely difficult to get through to.

Access Kenya – Access Kenya had always set their sights on corporate clients, but when the fiber was close to completion they decided to move into the home user market with the introduction of access @home. @home is a WiMax based connection that has a lot of connectivity issues once the base station you are connected to starts getting saturated. Why am I telling you this? Because Access Kenya are known to saturate their base stations. At 6000shs +VAT ($80) for 512kbp/128kbps  and an additional cost of equipment & installation at 15000shs +VAT ($200), the average home user would never go for this because its too steep.

Access Kenya will really need to up the ante if they want to get into the home market big time. They may have broken their customer targets 2 months earlier, but the home users that are connected to their service are an extreme minority.

Access Kenya @home support team is much better than that of the corporate team and beat any of their competition hands down at providing good support.

KDN – KDN have for long been corporate solution providers, providing service through WiMax. They came up with the much scanty butterfly product for individuals on the move. KDN are still focused to providing corporate solutions and not really in a hurry to move into the home market.

KDN support is a major fail and their recent two awards are nothing compared to their image. KDN really need to review their customer support & sales team and how they work.

Orange Kenya – When Orange was Telkom Kenya, they had been the BIG boys solely because they were the monopoly. That is in the past now, and Telkom Kenya is now Orange Kenya and they are trying to come back into the market with a bang. Orange are finally connected to TEAMS Fiber and speeds are blazing. Orange Kenya have the real vision towards broadband roll out to home users via old copper cables and the use of a livebox with inbuilt Wi-Fi. At 4000shs ($54) for 512kbps/256kbps and additional cost of 3500shs ($47) for the livebox, Orange Kenya have almost got it right, they need to reduce the costs further and increase the bandwidth. Most of us still have the traditional phone lines and would not mind moving onto the service

Orange Kenya have re-vamped their Customer support who at least answer their phones now, but who really need to be taught a lot more on their products. Technical team has also been really improved and downtimes are a thing of the past.

New Players

Tangerine Broadband – With what they have been advertising as – for as little as 649shs ($8), they have a sales team that do not know what they have for sale. Not much information means they have nothing to sell.

Zuku – Double play package providers, providing TV & broadband from wananchi online. At 4500shs ($60) and additional setup cost of 3000shs ($40) with free equipment, Zuku may just have the chance to sneak in front of the competition. What really puts Zuku off is the poor sales follow up and the poor support. Complaints of extremely slow speeds (6kbps-15kbps) are also plenty.

We sat in traffic for nearly 5 hours both coming and going and that is simply ridiculous. Traffic flow simply does not happen. At one point 3 traffic policemen were standing together chit chatting as the traffic bottle necked at the roundabout.

Once known as East Africa’s green “City in the Sun”, Nairobi is so choked with traffic that Kenya’s architects suggest moving to a new capital and angry business leaders say the booming economy is under threat. [source:Reuters]

Nairobi that was designed almost 50 years ago was done so for about 500,000 people, today contained within the same area the population is at roughly 4.5 million and the expansion of roads is simply not good enough. A recent survey conducted said traffic jams cost motorists 50 million shillings ($670,000) a day through increased fuel consumption, mechanical damage and pollution.

Alot needs to be done to reduce traffic or atleast improve its flow, expansion of road lanes is not good enough because at some point these lanes will be filled up with more cars. The following are what I feel needs to be done as a start:

• Traffic lights should be repaired and configured properly.
• Traffic police be trained to be professional and efficient. The Traffic police should only control traffic when the traffic lights are not working. The should strictly not interfere with the traffic lights.
• Roundabouts are so last century and should be removed. These roundabouts make it really difficult for the traffic to flow in a proper manner.
• A proper public transport system should be put in place (e.g. smart bus) one that will be run effectively, professionally and safely permanently, not just for a few months. Once this has been put in place, matatu licensing should be put in place so that it is hard for just anyone to bring on matatu’s on the road as public transport. According to me, if this alone is done, traffic will start flowing smoothly. Matatu’s, weaving wildly from lane to lane, account for 80 percent of public transport and are a major cause of congestion.
• Like many other countries, trucks and other heavy load vehicles should be restricted to be on the roads from 6:00AM to 8:00PM. Heavy load vehicles are slow moving vehicles and completely reduce the flow of traffic during peak hours.
• An increase in parking fees in congested areas will also reduce traffic as less people would drive their vehicles. More people would share one vehicle and split the parking fees within themselves. This should also be brought about once a more reliable and effective public transport system is implemented.
• Review of city growth, the government is not at all looking into the haphazard growth of the city and how people within residential areas sell their properties for commercial development. The government needs to set strict residential and commercial zones and maintain them from time to time.

These are just a few suggestions but there are plenty more, and picking anyone of the above would make a difference.

Please share your comments and suggestion with us.

[Image courtesy Mark Eichmann]