Nokia Seimens in Kenya is looking to develop the country's first “open source” telecommunication infrastructure, Business Daily Africa reported. They hope that upon completion it will be leased to the country's four mobile operators, Safaricom, Telkom Kenya, Airtel and Yu. It comes as the Nokia Siemens Network (NSN) continues to search for new means of diversifying the current tender model across Africa. Chinese companies Huawei and ZTE have in recent years begun to become more influential and are taking part of the market share. “This is going to be a nice initiative that will continue to boost infrastructure in the country,” said Nairobi-based IT specialist Navine Kimpaju, who added that many analysts often forget “that it is not just the telecom operators who need competition, it is the infrastructure providers as well.” According to local reports, NSN is battling their Chinese counterparts in Kenya. ZTE recently inked a Telkom Kenya deal of nearly $44 million to upgrade the company's 3G network, while Safaricom has partnered with Huawei to develop its Long Term Evolution (LTE) network. But NSN's head of African operations Dimitri Diliani remains positive. He was quoted by Business Daily saying that “we are looking forward to offering infrastructure that can be shared as it will be cheaper for firms to outsource rather than invest in individual networks. This is what will make us different from these Chinese firms both on quality and pricing.” BM
