Safaricom Fibre To the Home Experiences,Please share

mpesa
safaricom
#602

Finally! Share the field agent’s number please

#603

Safaricom seems to be moving fast saw some billboards saying Safaricom fiber Nyali and Bamburi, Nyali might be a hard sell but Bamburi will be their most fertile ground

#604

His number is 0724 619 733. Kiarie

#605

Cheers man! I’m in contact with them. Should be connected soon.

#606

I don’t understand Kenya’s telcos. I have friends who have been to the UK and the French overseas department of La Reunion & Mayotte & they are telling me that the telco companies over there; rely on the legacy copper lines! They say that BT and all telco companies in the UK except Virgin Media rely on ADSL2+ & a newer copper technology called VDSL2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VDSL . You can get upto 76mbps if you’re about <500m from the node (fibre termination point). The good thing is that it utilizes the existing DSL lines thus offering a faster roll out. Another friend who was from the aforementioned French territories says that the fixed connections is essentially the same as that of the UK except the speeds offered are only upto 50mbps. Technical reasons are behind this irregularity. In Belgium, for example, the incumbent: Belgacom, offers VDSL2 with speeds of upto 100mbps: https://www.proximus.be/en/id_cr_int_tv/personal/products/packs/packs/internet-tv.html . & so does the German incumbent: Telekom ( https://www.telekom.de/start ). The question is, why are our telcos - in the third world country that we’re in - hell bent on providing a full FTTH service that most of the ISPs in the developed countries are keen to avoid because of the high cost of rolling it out and the lengthy periods it takes to implement it? & all this inorder to deliver speeds that are most of the time between 5-10mbps! Even if this statement is true: http://www.techweez.com/2017/10/09/australia-v-kenya-broadband-speeds/ which we all here; know it isn’t, it shows that FTTH is an overkill for speeds that we could achieve using regular ADSL( ADSL2+: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.992.5 , at most). Our stupid incumbent: Telkom, has a very long fibre line due to the fact that it controls the NOFBI: http://icta.go.ke/nofbi-transmission-network/ . Telkom also boasts having the widest reaching fixed line thanks to the old copper lines that spans across Kenya. How this stupid company hasn’t thought about taking advantage of this goldmine is beyond mine! Funny enough, its main arm in South Africa utilizes this: http://secure.telkom.co.za/today/shop/futurehood/vdsl/ . If Telkom were to replicate this here, it would not only add a lot of customers to its network but also put it in a dominant position that will also put Safaricom into its place! But maybe these are my wishful thinking! Currently typing this on a Telkom 100GB bundle in Ukunda. No hope for me here!

#607

First of all, Telkom Kenya has no links with global Telkom, they separated sometime back. Govt has 40% stake and Helios has 60%.

Secondly, I agree with you it’s stupid to use fibre optic to offer measly 10-40Mbps. However, using fibre is future proof since it can offer up to 1Gbps. Carriers in countries like Estonia offer such speeds at a cheaper cost. Maybe if Safaricom breaks even we will start seeing speeds of 1Gbps and it will not need to replace it’s infrastructure.

#608

You’re right about Telkom. My bad! The logo is the one that confused me! But still, copper can deliver gigabits of speed too with gfast & xgfast technology. But who in Kenya needs 1Gbps except for a few multinational cooperations?

#609

Yeah, XG Fast technology in copper cables is promising. But I think fibre has the advantage over copper at any time due to signal loss over distance, magnetic disturbances etc. While fibre is expensive to invest in, it will result in better reliability to customers.

As to whether we need 1Gbps, my friend, you will be surprised. That’s only 125MBps which is useful in our changing way of life (IoT). We also need to be able to game in 4k online without the need to download a game.

The reason why Telcos in UK and other developed countries are still using copper is because this infrastructure was already there before fibre technology was perfected. So they felt that there is no need to replace everything. But Safaricom has no pre existing copper infrastructure. Thus, in its first implementation, it has to secure the future. That’s my opinion though :grin::grin:

#610

Tekom does have an existing copper infrastructure. There are still old telephone booths in many areas of my county: Kwale. And Safaricom does use Telecom infrastructure to deliver some of its fixed internet services to businesses and all of its fixed voice solutions: https://www.safaricom.co.ke/business/sme/fixed-line-solutions . & so does Zuku; it uses a copper cable from Telkom to offer the phone service in its triple play bundle. Keep in mind, except for BT, none of the other ISPs in the UK have copper cable yet they get it unbundled from the latter. The ideal situation would have been for any ISP to connect a fibre cable to a DSLAM inside of a Telkom exchange, then connect a copper pair that they lease from the latter - to the DSLAM on one end & the customer on the other end.
tz-delivering-higher-speeds-over-copper-today-fig-2_20231

#611

As you can see from the image above, not only does an ISP save a lot on civil works but also able to offer competitive speeds within a short time. If higher speeds are needed, the ISP can just turn on vectoring to cancel out crosstalk, interference etc. You could go to bonding too. As bandwidth demand increase, turn to solutions that can just offer that like: http://carrier.huawei.com/en/technical-topics/fixed-network/super-vector

#612

I now understand what you are trying to say. But this is not ideal to me. From what I remember, copper cables lose data significantly as data rate increases to the point where it is better and economical to have optic cable for reliability. Using optic fibre to the exchange and then distributing data to consumers with copper can cut costs sana but think about its limitations and cost of what needs to be done to increase bandwidth.
Alafu sidhani Kenyan Telcos can agree to cooperate ivo tu :grin::grin:.

#613

No. Copper only loses its data speeds with increase in distance. Suppose an ISP uses VDSL2 profile 17a, this can deliver speeds of upto 100mbps for only 400M from the node. However, due to ageing, interference and poor condition etc - typical of Kenya’s legacy copper network - the speeds attained will be at most 60mbps at such distance. In order for the ISP to deliver 100mbps to a customer in such distance, the ISP can either add another copper pair and bond it with the 1st pair in order to increase the bandwidth like 60mbps + 60mbps = 120mbps. However, due to crosstalk from the 2 pairs, the speed will be like 110mbps @ 400M. Why this is good for Kenya, The copper lines are there already. They’re all over major towns. All an ISP needs is to run fiber from the central office to a forward cabinet a couple of km away then connect the existing copper lines to the cabinet. These copper lines may stretch deep into a neighborhood or near a house several metres away. For example, we live 300M from the main road and there is an old telephone booth near us. What an ISP can do to connect to us is to install a cabinet on the road. After all, there is the government NOFBI there and then connect the copper cable on the road to the cabinet. All the ISP has to do on our end is to stretch the copper cable from the phone booth to our house. Not much digging is required and thus, they save money on civil works and they connect us quickly

#614

Please do a research here bro. Do you know why copper cables need to be thick depending on bandwidth required? Do you understand attenuation? a 10Gbps connection on copper may require around 8mm in diameter. On the contrary, fibre optic has less attenuation issues and size is significantly smaller.

#615

These are the issues am trying to tell you can be avoided by using fibre. :grin:

#616

People are talking of extensive Copper Network. I highly doubt this. Most of the lines were converted to Clothesline a long time ago.
Ama which copper are you guys talking of…

:grinning:

#617

Kamba mzuri Sana ,very popular everywhere .

#618

I’m also wondering the same. Whatever copper lines Telkom had are in a shambolic state of disrepair across most of the country if at all it survived the copper vandals.

:joy:You are a very confused chap, sijui utasaidika aje.

#619

Telkom is the provider of all dsl connections in Kenya - be it wholesale or retail. This is a good example: https://www.safaricom.co.ke/business/sme/fixed-line-solutions/compact-series-fixed-internet . A little research on your end is what is needed. Have you ever heard of Telkom’s e@synet bundles?

#620

Good conditioned 0.9mm copper cable can deliver 10Gbps for only 30M. The hardware on the Optical Line Termination(OLT) goes a long way to determine what kind of speeds a copper connection can deliver at maximum. And I am surprised that people are putting copper and expensive on the same sentence! My argument is that instead of various ISPs competing to dig new fiber cables every week to and through the same areas, they could take advantage of existing infrastructure to deliver broadband. Kenya has the national optical fiber(NOFBI) that has been around for over a decade now; reaching even the marginal towns of Kenya like Wajir. It also has the legacy copper cables that, while have been much vandalized in some urban areas, still cover more areas than all other fixed connections. Why an ISP can’t lease some of this NOFBI and connect it to the existing copper cables for the last mile connection is what is crazy! It will be much cheaper this way and the roll out much faster. Safaricom, Zuku, Liquid Telecom, Faiba etc have been digging and laying fiber in pretty much the same places; targeting the same customers. This business model is based upon targeting upscale areas that promise a fast return of Investment. There are other areas that are just as lucrative and, while on a relatively smaller scale, still offer good returns. My town, for example, is a huge tourist destination. It has one of the highest density of luxurious hotels in Africa. It still relies on Wimax at best. Yet, on the NOFBI website, it shows that fiber cables are there!

#621

you have to understand these things: The digging you have been seeing is connected to boosters. Safaricom mostly uses poles to reach clients, not digging to people’s house. Copper is cheaper than fibre, but the repeaters and vectoring the cables to provide optimal performance is not. As far as am concerned, Zuku began its distribution through the use of copper, and guess what, Zuku has the worst performance especially during peak hours (one of the caveats of using the “existing” infrastructure you keep reminding us about). The only advantage copper has over fibre is that it is cheap, nothing else. Competition is coming, and only those with excellent infrastructure will remain in business, look at Zuku.

Why do you keep saying Safaricom should use copper? Its not as easy to install as fibre, thats for sure, its just cheap. Also, for safaricom to start using copper, it will need to invest in repairing the other carrier existing infrastructure (Telkom, since you say they can share), and that is uneconomical.

Am sure they have thought this through before you knew they could have done that. and they are still making billions in profits. Google gave up on its fibre not because it was expensive and they can use copper, but because they found a new way to utilize wireless transmission. Fibre is the future, a new telco needs to consider that if they need to stay in business, not just making a quick buck from copper savings :smile: