DAILY NATION - Telecoms angle for lucrative data market

Obligations

Already, unconfirmed reports indicate they are both eager to snap up extra bandwidth should any of the TEAMS Limited consortium member fail to honour their obligations after the 90-day lapse according to the contract signed recently. Additionally, Telkom Kenya is part of a consortium of 11 telecom companies operating in East and Southern Africa that have, together, acquired a 29 per cent stake in the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (Eassy) project.

It is not lost on Mr Joseph that Eassy will land in Kenya a year later, after Seacom and Teams, but the Safaricom boss is already expressing interest in acquiring a stake on Eassy. “With the four cables that are expected, people say it is too much but I do not think so,” he said. “Reselling bandwidth locally and regionally is big business.”

The two firm’s financial muscles and the long contracts needed to sign up definitely give them an edge in purchasing large chunks of cable. Of the two firms, only Safaricom is known to have secured bandwidth for an undisclosed period on the privately-funded, Seacom fibre optic. Kenya Data Networks, a bandwidth reseller and Infrastructure provider, is also a Seacom client ...