License issuance to MNVOs poses unfair competition to mobile’s main players.

Written by

Communications Commission of Kenya issued licenses to three Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) under the applications service network provider category adding on mobile service providers to six.

The commission claims to establish competition by giving the licenses but on the other hand the companies insist on unfairness since with only ksh100,000 the Network operators can offer all services given by the main players and if not enough, the MVNOs, will operate using existing operators networks at a negotiated fee saving them financial responsibility that comes with  rolling out telecommunications networks.

The new kids on the block will be assigned their own numbering range where they will request and provide services as bona fide entities which means they will operate inde3pendently and compete with the host network provider in the services they offer.

Equity Bank’s Finserve Africa, Tangaza Pesa’s Mobile Pay and Zioncell Kenya are the new Network Operators issued licenses and have already entered into a contract with Airtel to use its infrastructure and are expected to roll out their services as soon as they are offered prefixes by CAK.

The MVNOs will however not own any spectrum license and will not put up any infrastructure but utilize excess capacity of the existing ones according to CAK’s Director General Francis Wangusi.

The new mobile operators hope to better their businesses now that they have licenses despite having  challenges with competitors telcos in the past.

Article Tags:
· ·
Article Categories:
TECHNOLOGY

Comments

  • CCK is being stupid here and acting like Kenya is some communist state or something. Since when did it become a responsibility of a state agency to dictate if private entities should or should not enter into partnerships?

    I mean, Orange Kenya leases it’s infrastructure to other operators, especially the fiber but this has always been between Orange Kenya and those operators. The terms have never been dictated by CCK. Why is this different?

    If Equity and Tangaza want to enter the game, they should get their own infrastructure or seek partnership with operators who do, without using CCK to blackmail existing operators with stupid threats like “we’ll not renew your license if you don’t share infrastructure”

    If anything, should it not be a government responsibility to set up infrastructure for operators to plug into?

    But I think even with forced partnerships, existing operators still have the arsenal to mess up those virtual operators. Lol

    seezus April 15, 2014 10:20
  • I have a layman’s understanding of this industry but I don’t see how they are posing unfair competition if they are using Airtel’s network. Airtel paid high licence fees just like Safcom, Orange & Yu. So I’m sure they will factor that in their invoices to these MVNOs.

    Shaf Shafi April 15, 2014 13:26
Shares