Telkom Kenya, the country’s third-ideal telco, has misplaced about 800,000 subscribers within the closing three months, months after the American Towers Company (ATC) switched off its community towers. By December 2023, Telkom’s cell subscribers had dropped to 1.3 million.
ATC switched off 246 Telkom towers as a consequence of unpaid leasing expenses in February 2023, worsening a inequity relationship relieve two years. Telkom Kenya’s debt ballooned to KES 7.1 billion ($51.7 million) by October 2023.
Per Industry Day-to-day, ATC demanded an preliminary fee of KES 500 million ($3.6 million) and a month-to-month rate of KES 150 million ($1.09 million) to reactivate the towers but Telkom cited monetary constraints preventing it from meeting its debt obligations.
Telkom Kenya owned and managed its towers ahead of ATC purchased 723 towers in 2018. At the time, the telco mentioned the pass would “make stronger the usual and reliability of our community to income our customers.”
As of June 2023, ATC Kenya had 3,643 towers nationwide, including 9 disbursed antenna gadget websites.