Airtel Finally Launches 3.75G

The much awaited 3G services are finally here with us and just as I had hinted about two months ago, the access on 21.1 mbps which is pretty fast if I may say. This means that the competition has been raised and Safaricom's monopolistic days in the industry are coming to an end. Funny enough, as  a Safaricom consumer I have not been able to enjoy true 3G except for the first days when the SeaCom fibre optic cable went live and they throttled everything to a mere Kbps with an optimization of a few services like YouTube and Facebook because they will always make money from your data and addiction... I am yet to try the Orange 3G but I am told by their sales agents that the 21.1Mbps is limited to some areas in Nairobi and not as far as Kayole etc. I just called the Airtel customer care service center and they seem to be swamped even the systems are down.

Interesting message from Airtel as seen on my phone.

The Airtel data prices still remain the same. Airtel is charging a 7.2 megabytes per second (Mbps) per month at Sh1,999 while a 21 Mbps access goes for Sh4,500 not bad prices as long as the quality is garanteed.  Hardware prices for the 21.1Mbps modem are @ KES 2299 shillings same as the 7.2 MBps modem. You can text start to 544 from your Airtel line to get 50MB for free. My wish is that given the fact that they have such great speed, there fair usage policy should be fair as well a 1Mbps data cap will not hurt. Give the consumers true 3G and they will come in droves… Now that the services are in place, Airtel will need a supper duper market penetration strategy and they sure can copy with pride but give us the quality hardware not the likes of IDIOS! Look at Samsung or Sony they have better stuff to offer, guarantee them market share and they will offer you a better deal. This quit a good time to shop for device partners.

What are your views with regard to what Airtel market penetration strategy and do you think they are going to have rock bottom data prices just as they have done with voice? Does Safaricom have a silver bullet for this like let’s say them unleashing the real 3G? And finally Una Hama?