safcom is not a monopoly at all.. there just a dominant player with a lot of jealous competitors

and about its subscribers.... it has 17million phone subscribers and 10million MPESA subscribers

@Tony Stark
AT&T:
US promoted a government sactioned monopoly with the aim of avoiding duplication. AT&T owned the national, regional, special government projects; plus all the telephones which they rented out to consumers.

Issues: cross subsidies, refusal to deal, predatory pricing
Consequence: AT&T sold regional holdings concentrating on long-distance services, special federal projects, and got permission to go into computer business.


Microsoft:
Microsoft operating system was bundled with a web browser software, for free; at the expense of rivals. APIs were manipulated to favour performance of IE over Netscape/Opera.

Issue: cross subsidies, refusal to deal, predatory pricing
Consequence: Microsoft required to share its application programming interface with third parties so they can compete with IE fairly.



Points to Note:
1. In both cases, companies were providing a platform which other competitors rely on.
2. Department of Justice had to initiate civil actions in court, for legal determination, on whether the companies were abusing monopolies.

3. Safaricom does not provide any platform used by any of the other companies; except in the case of interconnection. Hence government sets interconnect rates for all players.
4. Safaricom is undoubtedly expensive in most respects. There's no product being subsidized to ensure customers don't move.
5. Existence of club effect in Kenya is not synonymous with anticompetitive behaviour; existence of a monopoly is also not synonymous with anticompetitive behaviour.


Data Wars:
KDN currently has a monopoly of fibre, bred out of foresight. Orange are politicing hard to fight it.
If Safaricom triumphs in the end, it will be out of brilliant strategy/customer focus - or should they just be thrown out of the game?

As an FYI... My bank (CFCStanbic) was overcharging (IMHO) for EFT... Kenya Bankers Assoc has recommended a much lower fee...

I complained to CFCS, then to KBA... finally, CFCS went with the KBA fee... In the meantime, I had opened an account elsewhere (I&M) & now I do not need/use CFCS as much...

Ironically, their bid to make more off me jolted me... Now I have a 'dormant/emergency' account at CFCS but a permanent at I&M Bank...

So it is not regulation by diktat but competition through pricing & services...

Barclays & StanChart were the big boys... now Equity is eating their lunch coz of SERVICE (many ATMs & branches) + AFFORDABILITY...

@mukiha - The real test is in the real world... What will happen if no-one (politics) dares oppose the Bill...

Safcom wins coz they value their customers. I used to have a zain line 2 years ago from which i made most of my calls. Saf was for receiving calls. Then i misplaced the zain line and it was inactivated. When i went to get a replacement, they asked me to pay sh 100 for a replacement. Of course i told them to go to hell and i have never considered them again.