France Telecom's Kenyan unit has been awarded a Sh4 billion ($47 million) deal with ZTE Corporation to establish a 3G mobile phone network that helps develop and hopes to double existing subscribers, a press release from the company said. According to the agreement, ZTE will develop and install 1,500 3G stations across Kenya over the coming few months, with Nairobi being the initial focus point before moving to Mombasa and Kisumu. “We expect to double our subscribers frm the current 2.3 million active customers by the end of 2011,” Telkom Kenya Chief Executive Offer Mickael Ghossein told reporters on Saturday. He said that mobile operations in Kenya are becoming “more reliant on data for revenue after the industry regulator halved the rates that operators charge each other to connect voice calls across networks.” Telkom hopes to generate massive revenue from the deal in the face of the price wars with Safaricm, Airtel Kenya and Indian-based Bharti Airtel and Essar Telecom Kenya. “We expect data services to be the main revenue drivers going forward and the 3G network will enhance our service delivery through faster downloads,” Ghossein said. BM
