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OUR MATERIAL MATTERS
| GOVERNANCE, RISK & REGULATION
| NETWORK QUALITY |
ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY | INNOVATION |
32
As part of our commitment to delivering broadband connectivity to as many
Kenyans as possible, we surpassed our targets for 3G and 4G deployments. We
now offer 85% of the population access to 3G services, which is an increase of
7% and slightly more than our target of 82% of the population with access by the
end of March 2017. We also now provide 25% of the population with access to 4G
services, an increase of 12%, with 40 counties now covered. We failed to achieve
our target of 509 additional 2G-enabled sites due to instability and security
concerns in certain parts of the country, but still deployed an additional 487 sites
and we continue to provide 95% of the population with access to 2G services.
GOOD PROGRESS IN EXPANSION OF FIBRE FOOTPRINT
We made good progress in terms of expanding the footprint of our fibre optic
network again this year, laying an extra 1,464 kilometres of cables and connecting
36 more towns. Our fibre network is now 4,700 km in length and connects 54 towns
in 46 counties. We exceeded our target of 1,429 enterprise buildings connected
during the year by 16 buildings and grew the number of connected sites (BTS)
to 1,592 or 37% of the network. Early planning and increasing our deployment
partners from three to seven ensured we exceeded our target for enterprise
buildings, but our real success story for the year was passing by 40,569 residential
homes with our infrastructure. We achieved this as a result of early budget
approvals and deployment of materials, and by deploying cables overhead (on
poles), which is a much faster process than trenching.
SDG 9
2
G
2
G
3
G
4
G
3
G
Changes in Network Coverage by Landmass
Changes in Network Coverage by Population
FY15
FY16
FY17
72%
92%
69%
27%
74%
95%
78%
13%
44%
62%
*
95%
85%
25%
45%
* Reflects a change in the methodology used to calculate coverage and not a
significance change in the scope of coverage
“Our fibre optic network is now 4,700
km in length and connects 54 towns
in 46 counties.”