Breaking Down Kenya’s Broadband Costs: A Comparative Analysis

The cost of going online in Kenya has generally gone down compared to a few years ago. This is especially true for mobile data, where data bundles are becoming more affordable with each passing day.

However, broadband internet despite increasing in demand thanks to a growing number of people working from home has still remained quite pricey.

For the uninitiated, broadband internet refers to high-speed internet that provides a faster and more reliable connection compared to older dial-up internet connections.

It comes in different forms such as DSL (Digital Subscriber Line)(1 Mbps – 10 Mbps), cable (5 Mbps – 50 Mbps), fibre optic (30 Mbps – 100+ Mbps) and satellite (10 Mbps – 100+ Mbps).

The internet speeds I have put in brackets are just rough guidelines of the typical speeds you will get with the type of connection and are not set in stone. Different Internet Service Providers(ISP) will have their own packages.

To carry out an analysis of the typical prices we pay for broadband in the country, I looked at our East African neighbours in addition to Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa as well as a few developed nations for a broader comparison.?

The countries I ended up with are as follows; Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa, the UK, the USA and Germany,?

My aim was to look at three main points, the average monthly cost of broadband, the cost of broadband per megabit per month and the cheapest and most expensive options.

I got my data from cable.co.uk. At the time the data was gathered, 1 USD was equal to Ksh 128.21 which is what I am going to use in this analysis

Average Cost of Broadband Per Month

There was only ever going to be one place to start from: the average cost of broadband per month.

At $49.13 (Ksh 6,299) per month, broadband in Kenya is similarly priced to the offerings in Somalia at $52.50 (Ksh 6,720) and South Africa at $48.10 (Ksh 6,158)

Ethiopia (Ksh 3,500), Egypt (Ksh 1,237) and Sudan (Ksh 294) are incredibly affordable in comparison, offering broadband at less than half the price Kenyans typically pay, with Sudan, in particular, being more than 20 times cheaper

For the developed countries, the US is more expensive than Kenya at $59.99 (Ksh 7678), while Germany and the UK are cheaper than Kenya at a very similar price of $34.59 (Ksh 4427) and $34.20 (Ksh 4377) respectively

Nigeria, with the most expensive average broadband cost of $69.52 (Ksh 8,898) provides really poor value considering the purchasing power of broadband users in the USA.

Average Cost of Broadband Per Megabit Per Month

Dividing the average monthly cost of broadband by the average broadband speeds in the selected countries throws up some interesting insights.

Starting with the US, at $0.12 per megabit per month, their broadband users get speeds of close to 500 Mbps for the average monthly cost of $59.99

For comparison, at $1.76 per megabit per month, Kenyan broadband users get speeds of around 27 Mbps despite paying only $10.86(Ksh 1,390) less than their US counterparts

Therefore, despite paying slightly more for broadband, US customers get way better value for their money.

In Africa, Egypt (60 Mbps) and South Africa (80 Mbps) offer the best value, at an average monthly cost of Ksh 1,237 and Ksh 6,158 respectively.

Despite Nigeria having the highest average monthly cost among the countries we are looking at, their broadband users get slightly better value than Kenyans at speeds of around 40 Mbps.

Ethiopia and Sudan stand out as countries that have a very low average monthly cost, as well as ones that get low speeds at only 8 Mbps and 2.8 Mbps, which might be fine for basic office tasks but will definitely struggle when multiple members of a family are on YouTube or Netflix, watching FHD content

As you might expect, Germany (37 Mbps) and the UK (56 Mbps) get better value than Kenya, however, it is interesting that Egypt and South Africa have them beaten in this category

Best Value and Conclusions

The US certainly offers the best value on paper in terms of price paid and the speeds you are getting, which is not all too surprising given it is a developed country and has cutting-edge equipment with some ISPs offering speeds of greater than 1 Gbps

The UK and Germany on average have plans cheaper than what you will get in Kenya, while also enjoying higher speeds. The average speeds might not come close to what the US offers, but speeds of 56 Mbps and 37 Mbps are more than enough for the majority of users.

Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, who are directly comparable to Kenya in technology and development, have us handily beaten when it comes to the speed broadband users get per dollar spent.

Egypt in particular has a low monthly cost for broadband yet enjoys very high speeds.

Nigerians on average pay $20(Ksh 2,560) more each month compared to Kenya. However, they also enjoy 13 Mbps higher speeds. 40 Mbps vs 27 Mbps.

As to who has the better deal between the two countries, it comes down to a person’s use cases, heavy users will always favour higher internet speeds with most casual users content with just enough speed necessary to stream 1080p content.

In conclusion, Among the African countries I looked at, Egypt offers the best value in terms of speed and money spent, Sudan on the other hand easily wins on affordability despite offering poor speeds.

Kenya more or less falls right in the middle, not offering great speeds or being affordable as some of its neighbours.

For an interactive version of the visualizations I created, head over to my Tableau Public profile here