NAIROBI, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Some Kenyans have installed home fiber while others have bought Wifi hotspots and modems in the last weeks to access the Internet as they stay at home in fight against new coronavirus virus (COVID-19).
Consequently, the use of the Internet has increased exponentially in the East African nation as millions of citizens stay from home to maintain social distancing.
From children to youths and the aged, Kenyans are consuming Internet services in droves this period.
For children, nearly every household in urban areas, especially the middle-income, has installed home fiber or acquired Wifi hotspots.
This is after the government moved lessons online to enable students to continue with learning when schools closed. Colleges and universities have similarly taken their lessons and tutorials online.
"I had no choice but to procure home fiber two weeks ago because my children had to access online lessons," David Ngunjiri, a resident of Kitengela south of Nairobi, said on Thursday.
Ngunjiri, who works with a non-state organization that closed three weeks ago, said he spent 6,000 shillings (60 U.S. dollars) to install the service.
Through the Internet services, his children are now able to access online lessons every day from 8 a.m. to about 2 p.m.
"I took the package for 45 dollars a month, which also caters for TV," he said. Like many other people in Kenya, Ngunjiri did not see the need to have home Internet before.
But the COVID-19 crisis has turned the Internet into a key service for many families, boosting consumption immensely.
"Without the Internet, staying at home is boring because it connects you to the world and makes life a little more exciting," said Brian Kimani, a student at the University of Nairobi, who is using a Wifi hotspot to access the service.
Last week, the Communications Authority of Kenya, asked service providers Safaricom, Airtel, Telkom, Jamii Telkom and Liquid Telecom to lower charges on some of their services, especially the Internet, to cushion Kenyans as they stay at home to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.
Mercy Wanjau, the acting director-general of the authority, said with the continued institution of measures to curb COVID-19, telecoms have to come up with concessions to bring in more people into the Internet fold.
According to data from the Telecommunication Service Providers of Kenya (Tespok), regular traffic at the Kenya Internet Exchange Point rose to 22.6 Gps at the end of March from 7.5 Gps in January, underlying the fact that Kenyans are using the service in droves while staying at home.
Safaricom is among telecoms that have experienced a massive surge in Internet traffic, according to chief executive officer Peter Ndegwa, especially from home fiber customers.
Bernard Mwaso of Edell IT Solution, a software development start-up in Nairobi, said the brighter side of the COVID-19 outbreak in Kenya is that it has provided growth of new life that revolves around the Internet.
"Kenyans' lives now revolve around the Internet from shopping to schooling to accessing healthcare and working at home. By the time the country overcomes the crisis, we would be a different society and the Internet would be one of the winners," he said.
As of December 2019, Kenya had 40 million Internet subscriptions, with a majority of users accessing the service through the phone as home use through fiber optic also increases.
