Nokia Siemens Networks to enter Kenyan leasing market

Nokia Siemens Networks will start building telecommunication infrastructure to lease to mobile phone operators as it fights competition from Chinese firms Huawei and ZTE, Business Daily reported. It said Nokia Siemens, along with other European companies such as Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent, had dominated Kenya’s telephony infrastructure market until five years ago when the Chinese firms won major tenders from Orange Kenya and Safaricom. Dimitri Diliani, head of the Africa region at Nokia Siemens, told Business Daily it will be cheaper for firms to lease shared infrastructure than to invest in individual networks. Nokia Siemens is also introducing smaller versions of telecommunications equipment such as base stations, which are cheaper to install and operate. Business Daily said Orange Kenya and Safaricom are planning to form a joint company to manage their networks as they seek to protect earnings that have been damaged by the fall of more than 50 percent in tariffs since August 2010. Mobile phone operators have started massive upgrade plans focusing on 3G and 4G networks, thereby launching a battle for contracts which Business Daily said has even pitted Western diplomats against their Chinese counterparts. The reason behind the upgrade plans is operators’ diversification into internet services to protect earnings from falling revenues. The newspaper said Chinese firms have had the upper hand so far, with ZTE recently beating Huawei Technologies, Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson for Orange Kenya’s KES 4 billion 3G network upgrade.