M a r k e t N e w s
Nairobi county, Safaricom in Sh4 billion partnership to provide Internet to homes
Posted on : Wednesday, 10th August 2016
Nairobi county government will partner with Safaricom to offer high speed fibre connections in residential homes in the next one month.
The program is part of a continued partnership between the institutions.
Governor Evans Kidero said Safaricom provides the county with the back end infrastructure and Mpesa platform for eJijipay.
"The County government continues to partner with Safaricom, most recently for our land rates waiver campaign, where Safaricom facilitated an SMS system to residents which highlighted the land rates waiver," he said.
"We all know that residents would suffer without Safaricom and therefore any partnership opportunity to ensure efficiency, reachability and reliability is very welcome."
The Governor was speaking at his City hall office on Tuesday when the Safaricom team, led by David Adhiambo, Manager, Transmission and IP Engineering and Steve Okeyo, Regional Director Sales, paid him a courtesy call.
Kidero said the county will partner with Safaricom to decentralise its ICT service functions to seven major locations in the City.
He added that feasibility studies are still being carried out in the seven locations for viability of service offerings.
“This will ease the process of doing business with our clients, who will no longer be required to come to City hall to transact," he said.
"This will in turn improve household connectivity from the current 10 per cent to around 40 per cent," he added.
The county government intends to complete connectivity in the next 3 years and the total cost of the project is Sh4 billion.
The pilot for this project will commence in Langata and Kileleshwa areas in the next one month.
“Due to expediting of approvals by the County Government officials, Safaricom has been able to lay out 1,300kms of fibre in the County. The same approval process ensured that Safaricom was able to roll out the Police Service cameras which continue to ensure the City is a lot safer than it was in the past. Currently 70% of buildings in the city have been connected to the high speed fibre.” Kidero said.
Deputy Governor Jonathan Mueke said that the county government will put in place installation ducts to ensure that service providers no longer dig up roads and live them uncovered.
He also called upon Safaricom to take up the integration of the traffic management system as this would ensure synchronization of the lights and ease movement in the city and its environs.
Source : www.the-star.co.ke
