Orange Kenya is set to become the second telecommunications operator in the East African nation to roll out fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) services. Its plans follow Wananchi Group’s FTTH project, announced last year.

According to a report in The Standard newspaper, Orange Kenya — formerly known as Telkom Kenya before the country’s government sold a majority stake to France Telecom — wants to build a fibre network to offer triple-play services consisting of voice, video and data.

The scope of the network is limited for now. A trial network costing Ks15m (R1,2m) has been built in Muthaiga and Parklands, two upmarket suburbs in Nairobi, with promises to extend the network soon into other parts of the city.

Orange has introduced two products at launch, a basic 2Mbit/s service costing Ks2 999/month (R244 at the current exchange rate) and an 8Mbit/s service, which includes bundled fixed and mobile voice minutes, costing Ks6 500/month (R529).

Kenyan newspaper reports suggest the company has been pressured into deploying an FTTH network because of growing competition from mobile operators and from Wananchi Group. Also, like SA’s Telkom, the company’s copper-cable network has been targeted by thieves.

Kenya appears to have leapt ahead of SA in the race to build FTTH networks. Until recently, no local operators had any plans to extend fibre on a large scale into South Africans’ homes. Recently, however, i3 Africa, a new company backed by the National Empowerment Fund, has unveiled plans to build an FTTH network connecting 2,5m homes at a cost of between R5bn and R6bn.

In Kenya, Wananchi Group, which is backed by Cisco Capital and East Africa Capital Partners, is investing US$200m in new infrastructure to extend triple-play services to consumers under the Zuku brand.

The telecoms market in Kenya, once one of the most expensive places in the world for broadband, has boomed in recent years on the back of investments in undersea and terrestrial fibre infrastructure. Prices have plummeted in both data and voice services as competition has intensified. — Staff reporter, TechCentral