Jamii’s five-fold internet speed boost to shake up local market

Joshua Chepkwony, Jamii Telecom chief executive. PHOTO | FILE

What you need to know:

  • Jamii Telecom has increased bandwidth for its lowest home internet offer six times to 30 megabits per second (Mbps) up from the 5Mbps even as it maintains the price at Sh5,000 a month.
  • Subscribers to Jamii’s fastest band of 20Mbps that is currently priced at Sh20,000 a month will now enjoy speeds of 125 Mbps at the same cost.

Jamii Telecom has launched its most aggressive shake-up of the internet market with a five-fold increase in speeds for home and business customers without a change in pricing.

Jamii, whose internet service is popularly known as Faiba, says in a notice to its customers that it has increased bandwidth for its lowest home internet offer six times to 30 megabits per second (Mbps) up from the 5Mbps even as it maintains the price at Sh5,000 a month.

Subscribers to Jamii’s fastest band of 20Mbps that is currently priced at Sh20,000 a month will now enjoy speeds of 125 Mbps at the same cost.

Jamii has also increased fibre internet speeds for business clients who will now enjoy speeds of 15 Mbps for at a price of Sh10,000 per month for the cheapest offer that has been set at 3 Mbps.

Mr Joshua Chepkwony, the company’s chairman, said the enhanced speeds are meant to improve customer experience and affirm Jamii’s position as a leader in the fibre internet market.  

“We are overhauling our packages because we feel that Kenya is ripe for high-speed internet. We are increasing the speeds and maintaining the prices as a way of passing the benefits of our upgraded infrastructure capacity to consumers,” he said, adding that Jamii was just repositioning itself in the market and reassuring customers of quality service.

Jamii fibre network has more than 110,000 homes and businesses and passes in major towns, including Nairobi, Mombasa, Eldoret, Thika, Naivasha, Nyeri, Kitale, Kakamega, Busia, Bungoma, Meru, Embu, Kisii, Kericho,  Voi, Kisumu and Nakuru.

The firm’s new bandwidths are meant to attract new consumers and lock in existing ones in the wake of increased competition in the home internet segment with the entry of new providers.

Safaricom #ticker:SCOM, through its home internet business, and Surf Kenya by Internet Solution Kenya are the latest entrants in this market that was previously dominated by Jamii telecom’s Faiba, Zuku, Telkom Kenya and Liquid Telecom.

Liquid Telecom said it was exploring the possibility of increasing its bandwidth to keep up with increasing demands for internet at home while Surf Kenya said it was exploring untapped markets within Nairobi.

“Liquid telecom has connected 3,000 homes but our current reach is 6,000 homes. We are working to increase bandwidth to grow our reach”, said the company’s chief commercial officer, Mr Paul Statham.