Facebook in local internet coverage expansion deal

Companies

Facebook in local internet coverage expansion deal

Tuesday, February 26, 2019 20:45

By IVY NYAYIEKA

US social networking giant Facebook has partnered with local firm BRCK to develop technology that will expand the Kenyan company’s internet coverage for low income earners.

Through the partnership that was announced amid the ongoing Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, BRCK will roll out an LTE network to complement its existing WiFi network dubbed Moja Network.

This is free to use but BRCK also sells services to businesses such as advertisements, surveys, content caching and app downloads.

The new LTE signal will mean that their network will no longer just be available within WiFi range (a radius of 50-100 metres) but also to Kenyans on the go.

“BRCK’s 2,700 WiFi hotspots in Kenya and Rwanda confine Moja users to a radius of 50-100m, a fundamental limitation of WiFi networks. To give users wider coverage, BRCK has been piloting a low cost, solar-powered data-only LTE deployment that extends the Moja network with blanket coverage across kilometres with the potential to cover thousands of people per tower,” said BRCK in a post on its website on Monday. Facebook said its open source software platform, Magma, will be used by BRCK to extend mobile network deployments.

“Initial Magma launch partners are Telefonica, which is using Magma to help expand rural connectivity in Latin America, and BRCK, which is using Magma to pilot a new LTE network in Kenya,” said Facebook. BRCK manufactures routers and modems that enable users to access the internet, especially in remote areas.

Juliana Rotich and Erik Hersman, co-founders of Ushahidi and iHub, are some of the key people behind the Kenyan startup that earlier this month announced it had acquired the network and IP of the fixed public WiFi network Surf.

Kenya's data segment has continued to grow, attracting more internet providers to the segment.

According to data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), the total number of active internet subscriptions stood at 42,204,503 in September 2018, up 36.62 percent from September 2017.

Mobile data subscriptions constitute 99.2 percent of the total data/Internet subscriptions in the country with Safaricom and Airtel controlling the largest market share.

The top fixed data providers according to the CA are Wananchi (137,213 subscriptions), Safaricom (96,608) and Jamii Telecom (45,933).