Fixed broadband connections in the country have been increasing year on year in the country. In urban areas, it is not uncommon to see people with Wi-Fi in their houses or businesses and it is so thanks to the spread of fiber connections to these locations. In Kenya for example, between October and December of last year, broadband connections jumped 12% which was a huge increase.
As you know, they come with a price. Slower networks are cheaper than the much faster ones and data shows that most people have slower networks.
According to the Communications Authority Sector Statistics report, Kenya has 500,888 fixed data/internet subscribers. These subscribers have speeds that range from as low as below 256kbps and as high as 100Mbps or greater. The interesting bit is how they are distributed.
The band with the biggest number of customers is the 2Mbps to 10Mbps category which has 278,463 subscriptions. That is over 55% of the total. That is not a surprise since that is the band where you find the most affordable fixed data plans for most Kenyans willing to pay. If you consider the fixed data subscriptions that have below 10Mbps, that number increases to 59.66%.
The next big group is the 10Mbps to 30Mbps category which has 104,851 subscribers, which was 21% of the total. It is surprising that the 30Mbps to 100Mbps section is also not too bad either with 94,582 subscriptions, which is 18.8% of the total. The lucky few who have over 100Mbps speeds are only 2,594, which is only 0.5% of the total
According to the CA report, 80.6% of people have fixed data plans of less than 30Mbps. Since most data plans below 30Mbps cost less than Kshs 5,000, it seems like my Twitter poll was rather accurate. (82% vs 80%).
How much do you spend monthly on Home WiFi?
— 𝚔𝚒𝚛𝚞𝚝𝚒 (@kiruti) March 23, 2020
