I personally think that Safaricom have decided that it's not worth waiting for the regulator to make the moves. Why? From where I sit, I see lack of clarity on when this migration to Digital TV will be completed, given that it remains shrouded in certain 'mystries'. IIRC, we are not even sure whether it's gonna be DVB-T2 or the ISDB-T, or was this concluded already. I remember sometime last year, the govt said they will inform citizens on what type of Set-Top boxes will be used. It was more like the govt wasn't quite certain which direction it would take in the migration to Digital TV Broadcasting. If that indecisiveness really exists on the part of the govt/regulator, then it goes without saying that it's not quite known _exactly_ when the frequencies will be availed.

http://www.nation.co.ke/business/news/Competition+set+to+lower+Internet+costs/-/1006/1301666/-/item/0/-/7usuvz/-/index.html
is a pointer to some things having been discussed, but possibly stalled, leading to the agitation from Safaricom.

And I shamelessly want to share this as well: http://orion.my.co.ke/pipermail/eanog/2012-January/000059.html