Telkom Kenya Loses Customers Due to Tower Dispute

Telkom Kenya, which is the third biggest phone company in the country, has faced a big problem recently. They lost around 800,000 people who use their service in the last three months. This happened because another company, American Towers Corporation (ATC), turned off Telkom’s towers. They did this because Telkom had not paid the money they owed to use the towers. This made a disagreement between Telkom and ATC even worse. This argument had been happening for two years already.

Because of the towers being turned off, Telkom’s number of customers went down to 1.3 million by December 2023. In February 2023, the argument between Telkom and ATC got worse when ATC turned off 246 of Telkom’s towers because they hadn’t paid the fees. This made Telkom’s money problems even bigger. By October 2023, Telkom owed KES 7.1 billion ($51.7 million).

Reports say ATC wanted Telkom to pay KES 500 million ($3.6 million) first and then KES 150 million ($1.09 million) every month to turn the towers back on. But Telkom said they didn’t have enough money to pay their debts, which made the situation worse.

Before ATC took over 723 towers in 2018, Telkom Kenya owned and ran its own towers. When ATC took them over, Telkom said it would make their network better for their customers. But now, with the towers being turned off, people are wondering if that was a good idea. Losing the towers has caused big problems for Telkom, affecting both their customers and how they work.

By June 2023, ATC Kenya had 3,643 towers across the country, including nine special sites for antennas. Turning off Telkom’s towers caused big trouble for the phone company, leading to many customers leaving. Telkom Kenya is still trying to fix the problem caused by the towers being turned off. This situation shows how important it is for companies to have enough money and follow their agreements, especially in the phone industry where having good networks is very important for customers.