Safaricom splits business functions to separate entities

When things randomly happen - anything is possible. It happened to CFC, maybe Safaricom can adopt it?
Could the Safaricom miracle happen if its businesses; MPesa, Telecom and Data and/ entertainment were separated
What would the scenario be like?

Its like buying a sand castle in the Sahara

AK isn't worth a premium so no one will buy it. Someone will indeed buy their laid fiber for cheap out of receivership. Their customer base... we are in the middle of a data war... anyone's customers are up for grabs.

ICT moves fast... they put too much money in infrastructure and not enough into actually getting customers to use it. I don't think that there's enough need for businesses in Kenya to transmit the amount of data that would have been needed for AK to recoup the cost of their infrastructure. There will be once there is far more Kenyan-based content, and more Kenyan datacenters popping up, but AK just put the cart before the horse. They should have waited for, or created the need or want to use their infrastructure, instead of building it and then praying for that need.

Why would SafCom buy them when SafCom can just add business-class WiMax connections for last mile, and even microwave backhaul to towers they already support for relatively cheap.

If SafCom plays its cards right, it will see this and prop up "East Africa Ethernet" cheaply and quickly, and will dominate in data, because soon the Kenyan consumer will demand unlimited high-speed (but tiered) data for a decent price. SafCom is the only company positioned do this for a good price because they can ride their voice infrastructure -for now. They should offer it SOON and provide lots of content that they can house locally in company-owned datacenters so the bandwidth cost is low- especially music, movies, and TV shows, while the others fight over top-ups, and win the data war (also taking a big chunk of the pay TV market in the process). They can also maintain huge local caches to lower transmission costs, and make their internet "seem" faster. You've got to figure that 95% of what would be accessed would be the same content which you can cache IF you direct the want... TV... movies... music.

That's how they can win. If they fight in the streets over top-up cards, they will loose.

Top-up is FaceBook, email, and forums. EA-E is that plus real-time on-demand video, TV, music, e-books, remote CCTV, RAS, Skype, radio stations from around the world, and so much more. Then can even use MPesa as the payment engine for charging a few bob few premium content such as in-theater movies and the latest music.

Don't say that I never gave love to SafCom. That's more love than they will get in a month of product planning meetings. This is a gift to Bob, from Hill.

Hill

@KenyanLyrics

It's not worth the buyout at today's price plus a premium. There isn't the demand for point-to-point fiber yet, but the infrastructure ages and the debt stacks. That was AK's mistake.

But if you think it is, then let's talk it down further, get your team together, and then make a hostile bid for it- and you can thank me later for getting you a better price. Then you can turn around and sell it (or lease parts of it) to Zain when they start scrambling to compete in the high-speed space.

Last mile is not that hard if you are hanging Wimax off of existing voice towers. Most of the work is already done. If you think you are going to do fiber or even copper last mile, now THAT'S hard but unnecessary.

Hill