By Macharia Kamau
The Communication Commission of Kenya has issued Kenya Power and lighting Company (KPLC) a telecommunication licence, a move likely to see a shake up in the already lively and competitive industry in the coming months.
The power utility firm has been issued with a Network Facility Provider tier 2 licence — a type of licence given to data carrier network operators.
Fixed line and mobile phone operators are issued with a tier 1 licence, while local loop operators are issued with tier 3 licences.
The licence allows KPLC to own and operate communications infrastructure. The company, however, does not plan to get into telecommunication service offering and will instead lease excess capacity of its fibre optic network to licensed telecoms service providers.
The company is currently installing about 1,500 kilometres of fibre optic cable running along its countrywide power transmission network primarily for its own use, in a $33 million (Sh2.6 billion) System Control and Data Acquisition (Scada) project.
"The fibre optic network will have excess capacity, which creates an opportunity for commercial exploitation by KPLC to provide facilities for public telecommunication services," said Managing Director Joseph Njoroge. The licence will allow the power retailer to lease the excess capacity of the fibre to firms licensed to provide telecommunications services or to provide transit services through Kenya from neighbouring states for transmission of voice, data, TV and radio signals, internet, video and telecommunication services.
Project financiers
The Scada project is financed by the European Investment Bank and is being implemented by ABB of Sweden. KPLC expects the network to be complete by January next year.
Njoroge said portions of the network might be available for use in another four months as it will be built progressively and released for use between August and January next year.
The contractor is currently working on the 132 kV transmission line along the Nairobi-Mombasa highway between Mtito-Andei and Voi. Already the fibre optic connection between Nairobi and Naivasha is in place, installed during the construction of the 220 kV transmission line three years ago.
