Sam
Mwangi
Most often than not, we
are enraged when we encounter contractors from various service providers
digging the pavements and pathways to lay fiber. Ironically, we then demand for
high connection speeds for our Internet service at the office and home. The fiber pulling activity leads to
disruption of certain services that leads to grave economic consequences. We
have witnessed traffic jams, busted water pipes and interruption of other
public utilities. In part, this is due to the uncoordinated manner in which
different providers would lay their fiber infrastructure such that two different
providers would be digging the same route within a short timeline, probably
ripping up the same road and re-carpeting it within the said time. The other
aspect is that the regulating authorities that approve the works do not keep
proper records of the plans and of existing infrastructure. In fact, the works
plans are submitted in hard copy making it difficult to correlate existing
infrastructure vis-a-vis the proposed routes. Of course, soon after the fiber
has been laid, there is a possibility of a road contractor cutting it in the
process of road construction.
These challenges can be
solved in both short term and long term. In the short term, instead
of several authorities regulating the fiber laying activities i.e KENHA, KURA,
County Governments, CRA and so on, one of them should take charge for better
coordination and to avoid confusion. Long term, we need to evaluate the
possibility of shared ducts, not just with other fiber providers but also with
other utilities like electricity. Cost sharing among the various stakeholders
of the duct would ensure efficiency and minimize disruption. There has been
progress made in this front, the National Optic Fibre
Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) provides a shared infrastructure for use by the
Government and network operators. However, the infrastructure has been plaque
by frequent downtimes causing most network operators to withdraw. The Kenya
Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) telecommunications department has also
provided fiber over high tension power lines to various providers for connectivity
from one part of the country to another. Multi-media firm, the Wananchi
Group, has been using KPLC’s national
electricity transmission network to build a fibre optic platform, especially
using electric poles in residential areas. The platform - a product of an
agreement between the media firm and Kenya Power and Lighting Company - puts
Wananchi on a converged media highway that enables it to compete in television
content, internet provision, data and voice transmission markets.
There are various
models that can be used to provide a shared duct infrastructure. A single entity
such as the county government can deploy the ducts and lease them to the
interested parties. Alternatively, a consortium of stakeholders can jointly
invest in the ducts and then share the infrastructure. The problem with the
initial model is that the county governments cannot afford the deployment and
lack capacity to manage it. Most probably, they would require financing from a
venture capitalist based on revenue share or an International Bank such as
World Bank or African Development Bank. The
second model is that consortiums are unpredictable and difficult to manage.
Different stakeholders have different agendas and roadmaps based on their
financial capabilities and strategies. In an effort to lay the submarine cable,
a consortium of companies and the Government known as TEAMS (The East African Marine
System) had delays in implementation that lead the
private companies to opt for SEACOM. This illustrates the complexity of
consortiums and the unlikelihood of competitors working together. Lastly, the
regulatory authorities can digitize the records. There is software that
digitizes maps and concatenates all public utilities, fiber routes, water and
sewerage routes, underground electric cables and so on. This in comparison with
the plan submitted by a service provider in soft would allow for better
planning of fiber pulling activities.
