The narrative that CA has just set aside a budget of Ksh. 85 million to link remote areas with mobile voice is erroneous and misleading. The Universal Service Fund is a huge programme whose activities are guided by detailed research. A lot has been achieved so far in line with the mandate given to CA by the Law.
As a reminder, the Kenya Information Communications Amendment Act of 2009 (KICA 2009) created the Universal Service Fund (USF) whose objective is to support widespread access to ICTs including related human capacity building and technological innovations in the ICT sector. The Act mandates the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) with the administrative and management responsibility of promoting universal access and services with respect to the provision of communication services in Kenya.
The USF is expected to provide incentives for infrastructure roll-out in unserved and underserved areas. To support the foregoing, the Authority in May
2016 concluded a Study on ICTs Access Gaps which established that population coverage in Kenya for 2G and 3G stands at 94.4% and 78% respectively, while the land coverage for 2G and 3G is at 45% and 17% respectively for all the three Mobile Network Operators
i.e Safaricom (K) Limited, Airtel (K) Limited and Telkom Kenya Limited.
To close the identified gaps in the different service areas, Authority has developed a 5-year USF Implemetation Strategy to guide the activities of the
Fund for the next five years FY 2017/18 to FY2022/23. One of the five strategic focus area is basic voice infrastructure program whose objective is to facilitate development of basic mobile infrastructure to the whole country Turkana and Marsabit Counties
included.
The ICTs Access Gaps study using GIS and Access Gap Model methodology identified 348 sub-locations, which were established to meet the critical performance
criteria suited for “smart subsidies”, meaning that the projects would be sustainable. In the FY 2017/18, the Access Gaps Study prioritized the closing of gaps in 202 prime sub-locations, covering an unserved population of approximately 700,000 persons. The
project design took into consideration the 2016/18 licence obligations of Safaricom and Airtel for network expansion, together with which, the project targeted reducing the coverage gap of basic voice services from 5.6% of the population to 2.8% by 2018.
Update on the Voice Infrastructure Projects
The voice infrastructure projects were developed and tendered in the FY 2017/18 and as single or multiple bidding lots to Network Facility Providers
(NFP) Tier 1. The 202 sub-locations were tendered in 105 bidding lots. The licensed mobile network operators were invited to bid competitively for as many or few of the Lots as of interest to them.
The Authority has awarded contracts to Safaricom and Telkom Kenya to close the voice gaps in 78 sub-locations at a cost of Kshs 1.245 Billion. Among
the beneficiary counties in Kenya are Turkana, Samburu, West Pokot, Baringo, Marsabit, Isiolo, Wajir, Mandera, Garissa, Tana River, Kwale, Kajiado and Narok.
The Education Broadband Connectivity Project
Within the current FY 2017/18, the Authority awarded the Education broadband contract to three Tier 2 operators, namely;
1)
Ms. Xtranet Communications Limited – 284 schools
2)
Ms. Commcarrier Satellite Services – 291 schools
3) Ms. Liquid Telecommunications Ltd – 321 schools
Status of Implementation of the Education Broadband Connectivity Project
To date, the Authority through the contracted firms, has successfully installed broadband connectivity in 843 (94%) of the expected 896 beneficiary schools.
The contractors have given strong indication that the remaining 53 schools will be fully connected before end of February 2018. The total contract amount for the Education broadband project is
Kshs 837 million.
We hope that this helps to put the fund implementation into perspective. As always, we remain available to respond to any enquiries. We shall be having a stakeholder briefing soon and KICTANET listers as our stakeholders, shall be invited to the forum.
Regards,