The majority of parts along Waiyaki all the way to Kikuyu and their environs are widely served by Safaricom Home Fibre. It has been that way for an extended period, but it would appear that Home Fibre’s monopoly is about to come to an end.
This is because Zuku (by Wananchi Group) has been setting up its services in these areas, especially at Kinoo. This means that users will now have an option to pick from a variety of home internet providers, namely the aforementioned two, and Poa!
Poa!’s issue, however, has been limited access (at 4Mbps), and it does not have high-speed bandwidth as the case with Zuku and Home Fibre. Zuku, on its side, can offer up to 500 Mbps, whereas Safaricom maxes out at 100 Mbps (up from 60 Mbps).
Now with these products around, which one is the best for you? How much would you want to save? Are you okay with a slow connection provided you are saving some money?
How about installation fees? – do you want to pay them?
Well, the tables below round up a summary of these products.
Safaricom Home Fibre
| Package | Speeds (Mbps) | Price | Fair usage limit | Speeds after FUP (Mbps) |
| Bronze | 8 | 2900 | 500 GB | 1 |
| Silver | 20 | 4000 | 1 TB | 3 |
| Gold | 40 | 6000 | 1 TB | 3 |
| Platinum | 100 | 12000 | 1 TB | 3 |
We have since examined Home Fibre extensively. First of all, it has caps, but to be honest, I have never maxed it out so my speeds would hit the fair usage limit. Still, it would have been a great idea to let customers be and use their subscriptions as they see fit, but Safaricom wanted to clamp down on resellers. We have since moved on and learned to live with the limitations.
Safaricom had also planned to introduce fees for routers and installation. This, however, has never been actualized, and our guess is that it saw the disadvantage of making its customers pay for services that were offered for free.
To date, the only fees you are supposed to pay are for a lost router at KES 6500, and nothing else. Even relocation is free.
Zuku
As said, Zuku is now available in the said places. Its product is different from Home Fibre as it includes other perks such as telephone and TV services. And how much do they cost? Well, here is a round-up of its package plans:
Internet only
| Speed | Charge |
| 10 Mbps | KES 2800 |
| 20 Mbps | KES 4200 |
| 60 Mbps | KES 6000 |
The plans include free installation and a free modem. You can choose to add KES 500 for a TV Classic pack.
Triple play packages
These plans include a digital decoder, local and international TV channels, free Zuku to Zuku calls, and a phone worth KES 1500.
| Speed | Charge |
| 10 Mbps | KES 2900 |
| 20 Mbps | KES 4400 |
| 60 Mbps | KES 6300 |
Zuku further offers 100, 200 and 500 Mbps packages, but these speeds are too high and expensive for ordinary customers.
The fastest speeds (compared to the competition) were launched back in 2020. The 500 Mbps package, for instance, costs KES 22,500.
Poa! Internet
Poa had previously announced that it would expand its products to additional markets. It was mainly available in low-income households such as Kawangware. It has since expanded to Rongai and Thika, and after raising KES 3.1 billion, it revealed it would expand to other African states.
Now, Poa! has one package only at 4 Mbps. It costs KES 1500 per month, making it the cheapest Home Internet product around.
However, customers need to pay KES 7500 installation fees that also include a router, making the total set-up fees KES 9000. This is actually more expensive than Zuku and Home Fibre, which offer free routers and free installation (with a tad higher package fees).
Now, which is the best product for you based on the discussed charges?
Zuku. Living in that area, we had suffered before safaricom came… Numerous requests to Zuku guys to have the area served went unanswered. So safaricom will still be mama yao but at least with Zuku there are options especially new entrants and those who want extra service like what Zuku offers
I had zuku before shifting to safaricom fiber. The problem with zuku is i never got value for money. What I paid zuku i never got that speed. Mostly i got less. After doing multiple complaints they would just switch me to another server and in a day or two it was back to squre one. As far as safaricom fair play use goes till todate i have never had that issue as i have never reached that point and am very happy with their service.
Have used Zuku for years, it’s better value & haven’t had any major issues, only wish they can provide dual band routers
I’ve used poa Internet Mar & Apr 2022. I paid installation fee of 3500 and first month subscription at 1500,total to 5k to get started. I only used it for 2 months and ditched it… Was too slow. The apartment has safaricom fibre but if you apply they tell you the distribution hub is full so they cannot accommodate new users. The owner of the apartment has refused to allow zuku fibre. So I’m stuck with safaricom home LTE router at 5K for 5mbps, which on a lucky day, can reach a few kbps. Initial setup was 14k, 9k device, 5k first subscription
Was lucky with poa internet, 3500 installation and 1500 for 1st month, total of 5k to start. Mine has worked okay I bet since I got apartment with their main booster decked above us. So far so good.
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