Nairobi
Telkom has posted staff at various public telephone booths in Nairobi to assist callers
TELKOM KENYA is set to commission public telephone services to private operators by the end of this year through a project that will see its existing 10,000 telephone booths replaced by a structured system of telecare centres across the country, creating 3,000 jobs.
Bernard Rubia, chief marketing manager at Telkom, said the system is modelled along that operating in Uganda, South Africa and the UK. The telecare centres will help in stemming the more than Ksh30 million ($375,000) the corporation loses every month through cash pilferage and machine vandalism. Telkom commissioned a study last year that established that, in addition to vandalism and pilferage, public booths are used for drug peddling and as homes for street families among other «If we are to remain competitive in the fast expanding telcom sector, we have to make public telephone services available and reliable,» said Mr Rubia. Three categories of telecentres have been identified. Model 1 whose pilot project is already operational at the Ukulima Plaza, in Nairobi, consists of 10 According to Telkom’s tentative data for the pilot centre, the estimated income could top Ksh 50,000 ($625) in profits per month, as it is in a strategic location with high traffic. Such a centre is required to employ a minimum of three people, including a night guard. Model 2 will have fewer booths and no Internet facilities and will be commissioned at Ksh350,000 ($4,375). The third category will see owners of buildings in selected streets allow Telkom to put up the centres at a cost of Ksh150,000 ($1,875). Under the new partnership, operators will earn 20 per cent of telephone booth earnings and 12 per cent of the value of calling cards. «All other services — faxes, photocopying and binding — are added revenue activities for the operator,» Mr Rubia said, explaining that the operations will be programmed to reflect daily earnings. A spot check in Nairobi has shown that Telkom has posted staff at various public telephone booths in Nairobi to assist callers with proper denominations of change to make calls, to make sure the booths are in working order, and to sell low denomination calling cards. «In the past, callers have been inconvenienced when booths are tampered with by street children who insert wires to trap coins,» said Catherine Mugendi, customer care official attending at the Telkom public booths outside the Ambassadeur Hotel on Tom Mboya Street. Ms Mugendi said that public booths are a primary service and a major component of Telkom’s earnings. «A single booth in a high traffic site collects between Ksh5,000 ($62.5) and Ksh7,000 ($87.5) per day,» she said. Mr Rubia says that the objective of monitoring booths is to change the negative perception that public telephones hardly work. «The officers ensure that any breakdowns are immediately reported to engineers who now work within designated zones to service the booths. They are also supposed to ensure that the environment is clean and that the booths and handsets are regularly cleaned,» he said. The service is seen by observers as a desperate and belated move by Telkom to stay relevant in the wake of competition from mobile phone operators. Telkom is also reacting to the cheaper service offered by both Safaricom and KenCell under the Simu ya Jamii and Simu ya Wananchi schemes respectively. Numerous booths and open air units sit adjacent to Telkom’s booths to attract callers who pay as little as Ksh5 per minute for calls within the city. Fixed line subscription has stagnated at 300,000 lines while mobile phone users have quadrupled over the past four years, with Safaricom and Kencell having close to 3 million subscribers between them.