Honestly, What is it with ISP’s? For years they had only focused on the corporate scene, understandably because they were using satellite connectivity which cost an arm & a leg, therefore making it only viable for corporates to have an Internet connection.

ISP

Come in fiber connectivity to Kenya (and the rest of Africa too) and ISP’s had started coming up with products for SOHO & home users, prior to the completion of the fiber ISP’s had started selling these products to the home user with promises of increased speeds and lowered charges.

Some ISP’s packaged too good to believe offers as bait and fished in quite a number of home users and SOHO users. For about 6 months these clients waited with anticipation to finally have INTERNET, something to use and take full advantage, but alas!! When the fiber was connected and bandwidth now in abundance, the ISP’s turned their backs on their clients.

ISP’s now had a different agenda – Here is what we propose to you, “our loyal clients” since we now have cheap bandwidth, we will in good faith “double your bandwidth” and since we need to recover our investments, we will not lower the costs.

Now to me, that is a definite raw deal, no matter what hot shot CEO of whatever large ISP says. Yes you invested, you invested in your business, to move forward. But does that mean you deny Kenyans to what they have waited for, for so long? Does it mean you make Kenya wait another 3-5 year from moving completely into the digital era? Have you people ever heard of making money and recovering investments on a turnover basis? I think not.

Example – KDN CEO Kai Wulf mentioned that he does not feel Kenya is ready for the Internet, simply because KDN has only sold 20% of their capacity and still continue to pay for the unused 80%. Now, why not lower your charges & reach the masses? Do you really think Kenya is not ready for the Internet? Think again! Ever since the arrival of Fiber, no one has got more users connected than Safaricom.

With lowered equipment costs, and provision of free data bundles, they have won the hearts of many. However these same users later complain on how they cannot take full advantage of the media on the Internet due to data capping. In turn data capping turns to be a really expensive affair.

Safaricom has at least 1million data subscribers, reach out to these people, provide them with broadband (reliable broadband) services for as little as 2,000shs ($30) a month, which would still be higher than the average charges in Europe, America & Asia . You get just 10% of these 1million subscribers and you are making 200million shs ($2.65million) a month.

Safaricom still works out really expensive, so as an ISP you would still have the competitive edge, yes my above estimation is just a rough indication and has not taken many other costs into consideration, but as typical Kenyan businessmen who are trying to recover investment FAST, you are making on the minimum a 300% markup on bandwidth.

It would be lovely to hear your views and thoughts out there, this has been a long standing debate. Please lets all share what we feel and do correct me where I am wrong.