NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 19 – Mobile phone service provider, Safaricom has entered into a strategic partnership with Jamii Telecommunications Limited in which Jamii will become Safaricom’s preferred broadband infrastructure provider.
Safaricom’s CEO Michael Joseph said: “This relationship is key to the success of the company’s overall data strategy and is an integral part of our commitment as management to continually enhance the value proposition for our shareholders.”
“Safaricom has now formally migrated to the Communication Commission of Kenya’s new technology-neutral, unified licensing regime and can therefore effectively offer a broader spectrum of data services using any technological platform available to it,” explained Mr Joseph.
Jamii Telecommunications is a broadband infrastructure providers and this alliance effectively gives Safaricom access to its over 1,000 kilometers’ of state-of-the-art metro fibre network in Nairobi and Mombasa, with planned deployments in other key towns around the country.
Mr Joseph went on to say: “We have opted to partner with Jamii due to a number of considerations such as their proven technical expertise in the area of managed fibre services, the design and quality of their network and the fact that this relationship will allow us to make significant savings on both our operational and capital expenses.”
“We expect to realise these savings as we replace our legacy micro-wave transmission network with fibre and to exploit the time to market advantages that the Jamii fibre footprint gives us in terms of accessing large corporates, homes, small and medium enterprises so as to offer them cutting edge “last mile” communication solutions”, explained Mr. Joseph.
Jamii’s Chairman and CEO, Joshua Chepkwony described the deal with Safaricom, as a milestone for the Kenyan information communications technology industry.
He said the company had made a significant investment in developing its fibre network, and he expressed confidence that Jamii would be able to comfortably handle Safaricom’s requirements.
The announcement by Safaricom and Jamii follows the arrival of The East African Marine Systems (TEAMS) undersea cable on June 12, in which the two companies own a 20 per cent and 3.75 per cent stake, respectively.
