E-Commerce, videos fuel demand for higher internet speeds

E-Commerce and video on demand services to homes is resulting to a demand in higher internet speeds, a quarterly study by Communications Authority has revealed.

Consumers prefer speeds greater than 2Mbps which according to the authority registered the highest number of subscriptions.

Total internet subscriptions in the country now stand at 36 million, an 8.2 percent growth compared to the same period last year.

Mobile data still command the largest share on data subscriptions in the country at 35.7 million.

This is expected to continue with availability of faster internet speed 4G, which operators, Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom have rolled out on the 800MHz band while 700MHz band is being used by Jamii Telcom exclusively for data services.

CA expected demand for data to continue on account of increased uptake of smartphones used to access video on demand, online markets, games, music, news and social media sites.

Terrestrial wireless data subscriptions grew by 23.3 percent to record 101,582 subscriptions from 82,362 recorded in the previous quarter.

Recently, operators have been expanding internet access with fibre optic to reach various urban homes.

This could be attributed to the fixed cable modem subscriptions which grew by 5.5 percent to 102,165 up from 96,876 subscriptions reported in the previous quarter.

However, there is now a dislike in slow internet as subscriptions for speeds lesser than 256kbs continue shrinking.

As of march this year, only 699 subscribed to lower speeds while subscriptions to speeds greater than 2mbs were 195,562.