[November 23, 2009] Telecoms Operators Lobby Govt Over 3G Licence Costs Tweet Nairobi, Nov 23, 2009 (The East African/All Africa Global Media via COMTEX) -- Mobile telephony operators have taken their lobbying for lower spectrum costs for 3G licence a notch higher and are now actively engaging the government in talks. The three licensed operators -- Safaricom, Zain and Essar Telkom -- have held various high level meeting with government officials and the industry regulator -- the Communications Commission of Kenya -- that could see the current fee, Ksh1.8 billion ($3.2 million) considerably reduced. "We have been holding discussions with the regulator, which has agreed to review this price... We hope that the spectrum costs can be reviewed downwards to allow other players to roll out networks," Zain Kenya managing director Rene Meza said. At the same time, Zain Kenya has announced plans to roll out its 3G service mid next year, pending the revision of the licence fees. According to Mr Meza, the current licence fee is prohibitive and offers low returns on investment, a situation that is not conducive to the firm rolling out its 3G. Currently, Safaricom is the only network that operates a 3G network in the country in selected urban centres. It has around 1.65 million 3G customers. Essar Telkom, operating in Kenya under the Yu brand, had previously announced it would roll out a 3G network but is yet to do so. With the arrival of submarine cable systems such as Seacom and Teams boosting network capacity and bandwidth availability, the demand for data services in Kenya is growing and mobile telephony operators are keen to capitalise on it. According to the latest global statistics, 3G networks all over the world are facing capacity issues as mobile broadband becomes more popular. It is predicted 3G mobile broadband users will soar to over two billion worldwide in the next five years. The anticipated higher mobile speeds coupled with smarter 3G mobile devices will bring a face-off between traditional fixed line and pay for mobile usage against the new model of free content over the mobile Internet with advertising. Rather than simply supplying a data pipe to these Internet services, telecom operators will become service providers to their subscribers: adding value, providing flexible pricing and billing, ensuring stability and high performance of network services that will in return increase operators' Average Revenue Per User and build customer loyalty. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]