BY MACHARIA KAMAU
Orange telecom is in plans to partner with local and international content service providers to increase the amount of value added services on its network in an attempt to grow the number of Internet users on its network.
Mickael Ghossein the chief executive officer, Orange which trades as Orange brand said the firm is planning to increase data available to its customers, which he said would be a pull factor to other data users and in turn grow data subscribers.
“We have plans to work with many content providers both local and international... we realise that currently a huge amount of traffic is on Facebook and Twitter,” he said.
“We have infrastructure that makes us able to offer our customers extremely high speeds but there is no point of having such speeds if there is no content... content is the thing that will make people go online and stay online for longer periods.” He said the firm through its Paris headquartered France Telecom, would be offering its Kenyan subscribers content by Gameloft, a global mobile application developer.
Gameloft and France Telecom recently entered into a partnership to enable Orange customers in Africa, Middle East access Gameloft’s through a dedicated section of the Orange mobile portal.
Ghossein said Gameloft services would be available to Orange customers in the coming months. He said the firm is working with other content providers.
Last year, the firm launched a text message based drug anti-counterfeit service in partnership with M-Pedigree but has not gained traction.
He said the firm had scaled up its 3G network to enable its Internet customers around Nairobi and parts of Mombasa access the Internet at faster speeds of up to 42 megabits per second (Mbps).
Users will however need to use a 42Mbps modem that will retail at Sh10,000 in Orange shops. “Voice in this market is dead... operators are offering the service at very low rates and sometimes even free,” said Ghossein.
