@David, @Aki, Erik, @All,

I would also queue for Safaricom milk, because I'm pleasantly surprised by their innovation: m-pesa, 3g, m-kesho and now mixit. You'd expect a near-monopoly to sit back and rest on its laurels, not so with safcom. Safcom is clearly playing an important role in Kenya's IT space.

However, Aki's concerns are also legitimate. Consider this: If Kenyans allow a private company to build and operate a road between two major cities,  should the company also be allowed to control the usage of that road? Yes. But to what extent?
At the minimum, the company must be allowed to set standards for vehicles and for road-behavior - standards that will maintain efficiency and earn them profits. It should charge toll by the ton. But, should it also be allowed to:

- certify/license the vehicles that travel along that road? Or should this be done by an independent body?
- form a trucking company, and disqualify trucks made by other companies from using the road?
- reserve the road end-points for their exclusive use: to operate their own restaurants, gas stations and other businesses?
- stretch your imagination

I experienced this first-hand in Ghana (2008) when we were rolling out a mobile banking/payments platform. MTN and Ghana Telcom, the two dominant players, delayed the project for over 8 months. In the meantime, MTN started talking to our banks about their mobile money product - which was "under development". (http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Company%20Industry/M%20pesa%20reaps%20from%20MTNs%20legal%20tussle%20in%20bid%20to%20enter%20SA/-/539550/902578/-/qh0balz/-/index.html). They simply took a "go slow" on our case, denying us even SMS short-codes and and stringing us along all that time. Our product did launch with Zain GH, and through proxy, on their networks, but were they mad to discover that.... But I digress. The one year it took MTN to roll out its mobile money, was a wasted opportunity for Ghana's IT.

My hope is that Safcom exhibits no such tendencies. But, control of infrastructure is an immensely responsible, powerful and lucrative situation. And the temptation to abuse it can be too strong. My point is that, as long as we let the road constructor to profit from being a restauranter, a gas-station manager, a licensing body, a car/truck manufacturer, a transporter, a real estate company - all at the same time, we should not expect it to focus on making better roads that relay more tons/second, and to grant equal usage of its infrastructure to its competitors in the the services domain.

This is where CCK comes in. Since most of telco's services originate from attempts to create demand and to generate traffic, the services should be transferred away from their control as soon as they outlive that purpose. I believe that CCK should strive to police the fidelity of the telcos to their original role, instead of attempting to micro-manage their business processes. Do telcos provide reasonably equal access to all service providers and users? For example, Safcom and MPesa are two separate entities, but are other mobile-money operators granted equal access as MPesa to Safcom's infrastructure?

We should not fear when service sector businesses leverage other services to improve their bottom lines. These normally form linkages that create value for the consumer. What I think we should fear are infrastructure companies that dabble into services. After using that control to decimate their competition in the services domain, they will most surely stop innovating.

My two cents

Olive trees are important. They represent everything that roots us, anchors us, identifies us and locates us in this world - whether it be belonging to a family, a community, a tribe, a nation, a religion or, most of all, a place called home.
- Thomas Friedman - "The Lexus And The Olive Tree"