Airtel Kenya and the Communications Authority of Kenya have always had a tussle about money, especially regarding spectrum fees. The fight has been ongoing for some time now, and has for a long time seen the operator and the regulator go to court in an attempt to iron things out.
Before we can look at the latest development from the two, we should at first try go back to when Airtel asserted that the CA was charging a little too much for spectrum fees, in this case, the license for 4G. 4G license is too expensive
Back in 2020, Airtel wrote a letter to the CA, and lobbied it to revise spectrum fees downwards.
The plea’s main point was that a review of spectrum fees would enable carriers to deploy cheaper services to customers.
Airtel added that the existing structure did not allow companies to compete fairly in the telecom space.
Market leader, Safaricom was the first to launch 4G services back in 2014. The license cost the carrier a healthy sum at KES 2.5 billion.
Then in 2017, Telkom Kenya managed to acquire the same license. It was a big time gap from Safaricom’s launch, which had the financial muscle to pay for LTE spectrum.
Airtel only managed to launch 4G services in 2018.
The nation’s second largest operator, which is owned by India’s Bharti Airtel, stated that excessive fees impeded policy goals of delivering broadband access to everyone and led to valuable spectrum remaining unsold.
Airtel then added that ‘there is a strong economic case to avoid the level of spectrum fees being determined on the basis of revenue-maximising objectives.’ Order to pay KES 2 billion after license expiry
This development has been revealed this February following a report by the Business Daily .The case details are as follows: Airtel Kenya’s operating license expired back in 2015. From then, the CA has been trying to compel Airtel to pay KES 2 billion following the said expiry. Airtel Kenya has admitted it will pay the funds in installments. Payment will be completed over the next two years, and this will allow the firm to renew its operating license. The agreement further states that the company is now exempted from forfeiting 30 percent ownership to Kenyans. You can find out about this regulation here , but in short, it follows the National ICT Policy 2019, which was signed into law; hence, ‘ It is the […]
