FortySouth

Orange Kenya is stepping it up.

Yesterday the company announced a 40% price reduction on their prepaid data plan for Fixed Plus (formerly Telkom Wireless) subscribers, offering internet access on their CDMA-based mobile handsets at Sh.1/min between 7p – 7a, down from Sh.1.75/min in the same time bracket.

Packet rates are up to 153Kbps, indicating that it is most likely using CDMA2000 1xRTT as its underlying packet service. Average rates are, however, in the 60-100Kbps range. Safaricom and Zain utilize GPRS and EDGE packet service for 2G handsets, and HSPA for 3G models.

It’s not clear if the rate extends through the weekends as well, but judging from the company site it appears the Sh. 3.50/min rate stands for peak periods 7a – 7p.

The new frontier that mobile service providers will be competing in is the data service offerings. Mobile data and video traffic is expected to increase exponentially on a global scale, judging from Cisco’s  recently updated Visual Networking Index.

Clearly, this plan and price reduction effort is targeted at home users, small businesses and “road warriors”. I think the offering will gain some traction over time among technology-inclined medium and low-income earners due to its present availability, low cost (free activation, low access rate, low denomination recharge cards) and powered by the need for information.

Africa has registered one of the highest annual growth rates in global mobile subscribers over the last decade.

According to the 2008 ITU ICT Indicators report, Africa..

• has some 280 million total telephone subscribers, of which some 260 million (over 85%) are mobile cellular subscribers, representing the continent with the highest ratio of mobile to total telephone subscribers of any region in the world.

• is the region with the highest mobile cellular growth rate (worldwide). Growth over the past 5 years averages almost 65% year on year.

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Gartner Inc. has released a report of mobile technologies that will be quickly evolving over the next two years that may pose some issues on short-term strategies and policies.

• Bluetooth 3.0 – Likely to be released in 2009 with compatible devices becoming available in 2010. Will feature low power consumption and faster transfer rates up to 480Mbits/s in close proximity.
• Mobile User Interface – Organizations should expect more user demands for support of specific device models driven by interface preferences. They will also be an area of intense competition in 2009 and 2010, with manufacturers using UIs to differentiate their handsets and platforms. Continue reading