Factors Influencing Implementation Of Hybrid Fiber And Coax Technology In Kenya: A Case Of Wananchi Group Kenya Limited – Mombasa County

Abstract

As the broadband revolution continues, the ever increasing competition in the broadband service market is forcing broadband service providers to plan their strategies to deliver more affordable and competitive services with add-on advantages. “Triple play” is a form of broadband connectivity where voice, data and video are provided by a single coaxial cable connection. Over the recent years, as the internet and intranets have evolved, increasing requirements for bandwidth intensive applications such as peer to peer file sharing and Tele-working have resulted in relentlessly increasing demands for higher broadband bandwidth provisioning. However, it is the bandwidth required by the next generation TV and video services such as Video on Demand (VoD) and more significantly, high definition TV (HDTV) which have recently began to place most pressure on bandwidth provisioning in broadband networks. Even with the latest data compression techniques, HDTV requires in the order of 15 to 20 Mbps of downstream bandwidth and this is testing the capabilities of a number of broadband technologies. There is a myriad of competing technologies which can provide the bandwidth required in delivering broadband services but each technology has its limit in terms of bandwidth, reliability, cost and coverage. Optical fiber offers almost limitless bandwidth capabilities, has excellent reliability and is becoming increasingly economical to install. Consequently, fiber seems to be unsurpassed in its superiority over the other broadband technologies. However, many competitive copper and wireless technologies are developing at a significant pace and some technologies have so far managed to continually meet the ever increasing bandwidth requirements of the consumer. Hybrid Fiber and Coax (HFC) is one of the evolving technologies used for bi-directional data transfer in addition to voice and digital TV services. This study was geared towards determining factors influencing implementation of hybrid and Coax technology in Kenya: Case of Wananchi group. The study applied both qualitative and descriptive survey models to clearly identify the relationship between the factors identified in the literature review and the implantation of fiber and coax network. Data was collected using questionnaires before coding and testing for validity and reliability. The study found out that successful implementation of Hybrid Fiber and coax networks is influenced by availability of funds, Service quality, Network coverage, customer relation and government policies and regulations. The study found out that the implementation of Hybrid Fiber and Coax networks by Wananchi group has been successful and much of this success is attributed to competence of the project teams, proper utilization of allocated funds, good leadership skills from project managers and friendly government policies. From these findings recommendations have been made in the report. The findings were presented in tables and availed in Library for use by scholars and other stakeholders interested in such infrastructure projects.