With over 70% of mobile market share and owning over 60% of the country’s total stock of towers, Safaricom are Kenya’s biggest owner and user of telecoms infrastructure. With a need to expand cost effectively to rural areas, meet growing capacity requirements in urban areas and ensure their towers are capable of meeting the demand from third parties, Safaricom are keen to examine new solutions in the market. TowerXchange speak to the company’s Structural Engineer, Timothy Waga, to find out more.
TowerXchange: Whilst Safaricom itself requires no introduction, please can you tell us a little more about Safaricom in terms of its market share and tower footprint.
Timothy Waga, Structural Engineer, Safaricom:
Safaricom is Kenya’s leading mobile network operator. Founded in 2000 and with the current shareholding comprising Vodafone, Vodacom, the Government of Kenya and individual shareholders, Safaricom is listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. With 29.5mn subscribers, the company has a 67% market share in the country, ahead of Airtel and Telkom Kenya..
Safaricom has a footprint of just over 5,000 sites. The vast majority of our sites are ground based towers (almost 80%) with rooftop sites, in-building solutions and small cell poles making up the balance (figure one). In addition to using our own sites, we co-locate on towers being owned by other MNOs and towercos in the market.
85% of our towers are on grid, with the ratio of good to poor grid being about 70:30. In terms of backup for our on grid sites, almost 90% of sites have diesel generators, with batteries in place for further backup. On average, our on-grid sites rely on diesel generators under 10% of the time.
Figure one: Safaricom’s network site type distribution
Figure two: Tower ownership in the Kenyan market
TowerXchange: Can you explain how new site build has been managed to date?
Timothy Waga, Structural Engineer, Safaricom:
We build 90% of our new towers, giving some business to Eaton who can often build very cost effectively, although they will not necessarily be willing to go into areas where they feel the potential for securing additional co-locations is limited. We’re starting to see new companies springing up offering build to suit contracts, the challenge is that most of these companies don’t yet have a license and it can be very hard to obtain one.
Safaricom currently have eight partners who provide site construction and integration services in distinct geographical regions, whilst Safaricom free issues the towers. Over the past couple of years we have just been purchasing towers from two partners but are keen to look at broadening this out to make sure that we are finding out about new site designs, bringing down costs and designing the right sites for the future. When it comes to site maintenance (including energy) we work with six partners, once again with each partner active in a distinct geographical region.
TowerXchange: In particular, what new solutions are you looking for when it comes to deploying new macro sites?
Timothy Waga, Structural Engineer, Safaricom:
With decreasing ARPU, we are under a lot of pressure to manage costs when rolling out cell sites. As such, finding ways and solutions to do this as cost effectively as possible is of paramount importance.
In Northern Kenya, where there are a lot of small settlements in remote areas where security is also a concern, the need to control costs is particularly acute. As such, we’re looking for ultra-low cost solutions which help us bring coverage to such areas.
We are also going to be doing a lot of deployments around events in the country and this creates the need for rapidly deployable, low cost, transportable solutions which can be quickly assembled and then disassembled around the events. It is likely that many of the solutions for these rural and remote areas may also be good solutions for rapid deployment.
We also have an interest in learning more about different camouflage solutions that are in the market. To date, we have had very little exposure to these but are very keen to find out more about some of the innovative designs that are being used elsewhere across the globe.
TowerXchange: Plus what are the key structural considerations when it comes your current stock of sites?
Timothy Waga, Structural Engineer, Safaricom:
With such a large portfolio of assets in the country we get a large number of requests from various different parties, beyond just the MNOs, to use our sites. We need to look at what we are able to do with our existing stock to accommodate requests whilst also making sure that we make it suitable for future use.
Whilst towercos have always focused on building towers suitable for multiple tenants, many MNO sites have been historically built for a single operator. It is important that we look at the upcoming requirements of our existing and future sites to ensure that we are building the most appropriate solutions.
TowerXchange: To what extent do you see growing opportunities beyond macro sites?
Timothy Waga, Structural Engineer, Safaricom:
Whilst macro sites will continue to make up the majority of our portfolio, we are seeing a growing role for small cells and DAS in the market. Safaricom has been deploying small cells for a couple of years and are keen to learn more about the different infrastructure options and deployment models to facilitate rollout. Similarly, as the skyline continues to expand in major cities, macro sites are struggling to deliver the coverage required and so we’re seeing a lot of growth in indoor DAS. In the rollout of such alternative site typologies it is important to work with a whole host of different stakeholders from billboard owners to building developers to ensure that communications are being considered in their planning.
TowerXchange: As a structural engineer, how would you like to see your interaction with your peers and suppliers change?
Timothy Waga, Structural Engineer, Safaricom:
When it comes to the active side of the network you often find a host of different working groups designed to get different stakeholder together to look at the technology evolution roadmap. These types of interactions are hugely valuable but have been lacking for the passive side of things.
Discussions around site design have been rather disjointed, with different stakeholders tending to operate independently and many MNOs only considering site design around the time of issuing an RFP. Creating a platform where different stakeholders with an interest in tower design can come together to discuss how site design needs to evolve and share innovative solutions that are already in the market would bring a lot of benefit to the industry.
