Seven firms in race to compete against Telkom
By Noel Wandera
Seven telecommunication firms have now been short-listed to vie for the second national operator licence.
This means that one firm has been dropped from the list of eight that Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) Director-General Mr John Waweru announced earlier in August to have pre-qualified.
Although Waweru declined to name them as the firms pre-qualified, it has emerged that those in the race included France Telecom, Telkom South Africa, India’s state run Telco, Mahanagar’s Telephone Nigam Ltd and Emirates Telecommunications Corporation.
A consortium led by Swedtel of Sweden is also in the race and VTEL from Palestine.
CCK has also pre-qualified Bharti Venturetech of Mauritius.
The CCK chairman, Mr Joseph Njagi, regretted the delay in the licensing of the SNO.
"We do appreciate that the country has lost enormously due to the delay of entry of a competitor to Telkom-Kenya," said Njagi.
The first attempt to find an SNO was in 2003. It was, however, cancelled after only one bidder was left in the race.
According to the CCK plan, the SNO provider will be announced in December.
However, the new operator is expected to start rolling out its services in May next year.
"This is because of the equipment must be customised and therefore the winner will have to go back and start manufacturing them to the local specifications," said Waweru at an earlier meeting.
The winner will have a unified licence, which will enable provision of mobile telephone, Internet backbone, international voice gateway, commercial Vsat and long-distance voice and data services.
Mr Bitange Ndemo, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry of Information and Communication, hoped the SNO would streamline telecommunication charges.
"These prices are still high for majority of users," he said adding that he expects "the second operator to inject the necessary competition to bring" them down.
Representatives of the bidding firms also attended the function at the CCK headquarters where the announcement was made.
Mr Per-Olof Janson, Swedtel’s director for business development in Africa is quoted as saying that a converged licence was an important incentive.
"This is a universal licence ... convergence and universal licensing has helped a lot to increase the interest and competition," Reuters News Agency quoted Janson as saying.
CCK said the interest shown by international firms was due to a general recovery trend that the global telecommunication industry is going through.
The 13 international firms that had shown interest in the SNO include high profile telecommunication companies like Portugal Telecoms, Saskatel of Canada and Detecon of Germany. Telkom has been unable to satisfy demand for fixed-line telephony, a gap Celtel Kenya and Safaricom have filled through provision of mobile telephony services.
By June, CCK says the two providers had a combined subscription of 6.48 million, against a paltry fixed-line subscriber base of 300,000.
Seven telecommunication firms have now been short-listed to vie for the second national operator licence.
This means that one firm has been dropped from the list of eight that Communication Commission of Kenya (CCK) Director-General Mr John Waweru announced earlier in August to have pre-qualified.
Although Waweru declined to name them as the firms pre-qualified, it has emerged that those in the race included France Telecom, Telkom South Africa, India’s state run Telco, Mahanagar’s Telephone Nigam Ltd and Emirates Telecommunications Corporation.
A consortium led by Swedtel of Sweden is also in the race and VTEL from Palestine.
CCK has also pre-qualified Bharti Venturetech of Mauritius.
The CCK chairman, Mr Joseph Njagi, regretted the delay in the licensing of the SNO.
"We do appreciate that the country has lost enormously due to the delay of entry of a competitor to Telkom-Kenya," said Njagi.
The first attempt to find an SNO was in 2003. It was, however, cancelled after only one bidder was left in the race.
According to the CCK plan, the SNO provider will be announced in December.
However, the new operator is expected to start rolling out its services in May next year.
"This is because of the equipment must be customised and therefore the winner will have to go back and start manufacturing them to the local specifications," said Waweru at an earlier meeting.
The winner will have a unified licence, which will enable provision of mobile telephone, Internet backbone, international voice gateway, commercial Vsat and long-distance voice and data services.
Mr Bitange Ndemo, the Permanent Secretary in the ministry of Information and Communication, hoped the SNO would streamline telecommunication charges.
"These prices are still high for majority of users," he said adding that he expects "the second operator to inject the necessary competition to bring" them down.
Representatives of the bidding firms also attended the function at the CCK headquarters where the announcement was made.
Mr Per-Olof Janson, Swedtel’s director for business development in Africa is quoted as saying that a converged licence was an important incentive.
"This is a universal licence ... convergence and universal licensing has helped a lot to increase the interest and competition," Reuters News Agency quoted Janson as saying.
CCK said the interest shown by international firms was due to a general recovery trend that the global telecommunication industry is going through.
The 13 international firms that had shown interest in the SNO include high profile telecommunication companies like Portugal Telecoms, Saskatel of Canada and Detecon of Germany. Telkom has been unable to satisfy demand for fixed-line telephony, a gap Celtel Kenya and Safaricom have filled through provision of mobile telephony services.
By June, CCK says the two providers had a combined subscription of 6.48 million, against a paltry fixed-line subscriber base of 300,000.
posted by Mwananchi at 5:11 PM
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