What the latest ICT sector numbers don't say

Every quarter, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), publishes its "State of ICTs" report, which is what I like to call the Quarterly Sector Statistics Report. 

The latest, dated June 2016, does not disappoint in painting a rosy picture of our ever-dynamic and expanding ICT sector.

Some of the common indicators that are always on an upward trend include the number of mobile phone subscribers. Mobile penetration now stands at 89 per cent of the population.

Mobile money subscription is also up and stands at 88 per cent of the population, a group of people that managed to transfer close to Sh840 billion between them during the quarter under review.

Internet penetration has risen to 87.2 per cent of the population. The latest figures on investment in the internet data markets show Sh3.4 billion was invested in 2014, with corresponding revenues of Sh10.1 billion over the same period.

Things remain rosy in the ICT sector, but the devil is always in the details. Some issues in the sector have just refused to go away, and here we will take a look at some of them.

The big one, of course, is dominance. Safaricom, the leading provider, has continued to enjoy its distant lead ahead of the competition across the voice, data and mobile money markets, with 65.6 per cent of all subscribers.

This seemingly unassailable lead has left many casualties along the way, with Orange, Telkom Kenya's French partner, being the latest competitor to bite the dust and divest from the market.

Safaricom attributes its runaway success to its innovation culture, and argues it does not abuse its competitive position. Competitors, however, believe that the government shareholding interests in the company works to its advantage.

The award of the 4G licence to Safaricom ahead of its competitors, as well as the extensive use of Safaricom's infrastructure and mobile money platforms in government, are often cited as giving Safaricom a huge advantage over the competition.

FAILING CONGESTED OR SLOW

Sporadic attempts by the regulator to declare Safaricom a dominant operator have always been met with swift and sometimes turbulent repercussions within and beyond the regulatory domain.

Closely related to competition is the question of pricing within the telecommunication sector.  

The price of communication services has indeed dropped over the years but still remains unaffordable to a majority of Kenyans. The fact that we can spend Sh10 to buy internet data bundles of 15MB daily may contribute to our high internet penetration level, but hides the fact that barely any productive internet-based work is possible with such a connection.

Such connections consign Kenyans to the "consumer" rather than "producer" categories of the knowledge economy value chain. We may tweet, chat or use Facebook, but we won't be able to create the next Twitter or Facebook application.

Unless and until the cost of high-quality broadband internet falls below the UN Broadband commission target of 5 per cent of average incomes, opportunities to participate at the higher levels of the internet economy will remain highly constrained.

Finally, the quality of service is another hidden issue that the report fails to talk about. 

Whereas the quality of voice communications is easier to measure, it is only recently that the regulator has initiated efforts to begin to record the same.

The quality of internet services is even harder to measure, but still very critical to capture if the sector is to mature. Many consumers are paying for services that are always failing, congested or extremely slow.

So, next time the regulator gives us the ICT status report, it would be nice to add a few paragraphs on the state of competition, affordability and quality of services.

Mr Walubengo is a lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya, Faculty of Computing and IT. Email: [email protected], Twitter: @jwalu