Kenya ready to roll out $ 500 million high-speed 4G network by 2013

NAIROBI: Kenya aims to roll out a high-speed fourth-generation (4G) mobile data services network by 2013, at an estimated cost of $500 million, to meet growing demand for wireless access to the internet in East Africa's largest economy.
Bitange Ndemo, permanent secretary at the ministry of information and communication, told Reuters that all Kenyan mobile phone firms had signed up to the new project and it was now awaiting approval from the ministry of finance.
"We need to have it (the network) before the next elections (due in March 2013). That is what we are targeting," he said late Thursday on the sidelines of a US-Kenya conference on infrastructure projects.
So-called 4G LTE (long term evolution) networks promise download speeds more than five times those of 3G and are designed for data, rather than voice, as well as supporting high-definition video conferencing.
Data is seen as a major growth area in the telecoms sector, prompting firms to invest heavily to offset the impact of falling voice revenues on the back of a price war.
At present, Safaricom, 40 percent owned by Britain's Vodafone, is the only network in Kenya to have fully rolled out a 3G network across the country and is already testing the LTE technology at five sites.
Other firms with 3G licenses are Telkom Kenya, controlled by France Telecom's Orange, and the Kenyan unit of India's Bharti Airtel. Both Orange and Airtel are in the process of rolling out 3G networks countrywide.
The first phase would involve rolling out the 4G network to the country's 47 counties at a cost of $100 million, a figure that would rise further in the next phase that would see the new service connected to the entire country's network.
"We have finished with the study. We have sent it to the Ministry of Finance. We are just waiting for the approval and then we hit the road," Ndemo said.
"Phase one... we will go to the counties, and leveraging on the existing base stations, but by the time we cover everywhere it would be even up to $500 million," he said.
Mobile carriers worldwide are increasingly upgrading to LTE networks that support high-speed wireless services as consumers use tablet computers and smartphones to surf the web.
In September, the ministry said potential investors should have at least a 20 percent Kenyan shareholding and the financial and technical capability to roll out commercial services to the country's 47 counties within a year of forming a partnership with the government.
Mobile phone users in the country of 40 million people grew by 12.5 percent to 28.1 million in the last quarter of 2011.
Internet users nearly doubled to 17.4 million in the period, thanks to an increase in mobile phone subscriptions, the industry regulator said.
Safaricom said it was looking to increase performance of its data segment through increased investments in fiber during the release of its 2011 results last week.
Ndemo said once the 4G project got a green light, it would take six to seven months to be rolled-out countywide. The government's plan is to give the 4G spectrum to operators, and for the companies to fund network deployment.
The second phase of the project would involve connecting all the country's mobile phone base stations to fiber optic cable. In addition to the mobile operators, data network operators and equipment suppliers would take part in the project.
"It's an open access model. We can't set it (the special purpose vehicle for delivering the project) up until we get the approval from Treasury. They can take one month, or two months. But it's going to be very soon," Ndemo said.