Kenya : la couverture mobile

Ce que veulent dire les chiffres de Kenya

Deux nombres comptent et un seul est celui que tout le monde cite. Le débit habituel, 33 Mbit/s, dit à quoi ressemble un bon moment.

Le dixième centile, 7 Mbit/s, c'est celui qu'il faut lire. C'est le débit du dixième le plus mauvais de la journée, quand l'antenne au-dessus de la gare est saturée et que tout le monde autour de vous est dessus. Un pays à médiane haute et à plancher bas, c'est un pays qui marche à merveille jusqu'au moment où vous en avez vraiment besoin.

Si le voyage dépend des appels vidéo ou du partage de connexion, organise toi en fonction du chiffre en heure chargée plutôt que du débit habituel.

Ce qui se passe en Kenya quand le réseau est saturé

La congestion n'est pas une panne, c'est un mardi soir. La question est ce que votre eSIM peut y faire, et pour la plupart des eSIM de voyage la réponse est rien : un accord de gros par pays, un réseau, et aucune issue sauf acheter une deuxième eSIM chez quelqu'un d'autre, debout dans la rue.

Ici le trafic Orbislo passe par Safaricom et Airtel. Quand le réseau où vous êtes se dégrade, nous vous basculons sur un autre, en plein voyage, sans que vous demandiez, et nous vous le disons après plutôt que de vous interrompre sur le moment.

Les opérateurs mobiles en Kenya

• Safaricom: Safaricom held 69.8 percent of Kenya's 88.0 million mobile subscriptions at the end of June 2026, according to the Communications Authority. That was 61.4 million lines, of which 59.6 million were prepaid.
• Safaricom: Vodacom completed the purchase of an additional 20 percent effective stake in Safaricom after the Court of Appeal stayed a conservatory order on 26 June 2026, taking its holding to about 55 percent. The Government of Kenya keeps a 20 percent stake.
• Safaricom: In the year to March 2026 the Communications Authority granted Safaricom a 25 year operating licence under its Unified Licensing Framework, replacing a temporary two year permit. The regulator has traditionally issued 10 year licences.
• Airtel: Airtel Networks Kenya had 23.6 million mobile subscriptions at the end of June 2026, a 26.8 percent share of the market, and 31.9 percent of mobile broadband subscriptions, according to the regulator's sector statistics.
• Airtel: Airtel Kenya paid Sh494.2 million plus related fees to extend its operating licence to January 2027, under interim permits issued in late 2024 while the regulator reviewed a move from administrative spectrum allocation to auctions.
• Telkom Kenya: Telkom Kenya had 545,765 mobile subscriptions at the end of June 2026, a 0.6 percent share, making it the smallest of the operators the regulator reports on.
• Equitel: Finserve, trading as Equitel, had 1,468,616 mobile subscriptions at the end of June 2026, all of them prepaid, which gave it 1.7 percent of the market.
• Jamii Telecom: Jamii Telecommunications had 937,640 mobile subscriptions at the end of June 2026, a 1.1 percent share. The regulator notes that Jamii provides data services only.

Les anciens réseaux en Kenya

• Kenya has no national 2G or 3G switch off date. It is one of 11 countries in a GSMA roadmap aiming to phase out 2G and 3G by 2030, and within the East African Community only Rwanda has launched a phase out programme.
• At the end of June 2026 the regulator still counted 9.3 million 2G and 4.5 million 3G mobile data subscriptions, down from 12.8 million and 7.4 million a year earlier, and 27.4 million feature phones connected to the networks.
• Safaricom was still expanding its older network in the year to March 2025, with its 3G sites rising from 6,823 to 6,970 while 4G sites grew from 6,745 to 6,937.
• Safaricom says phones that already work on its 2G, 3G and 4G networks continue to be supported, and that an existing SIM card works on 5G without a replacement.

La 5G en Kenya

• Safaricom was granted 60 MHz in the 2600 MHz band in May 2022 and switched on 5G in October 2022, first in Nairobi, Kisumu, Kisii and Kakamega. Airtel Kenya took a further 60 MHz in the same band in July 2022.
• Airtel launched 5G in July 2023 as the second operator to do so, starting with 370 sites across 16 counties and a 5G home broadband product sold with a router.
• By August 2024 Safaricom had 1,114 5G sites covering 102 towns in all 47 counties, reaching 14 percent of the population, with more than 780,000 5G smartphones active on its network.
• Safaricom's 5G network grew from 803 to 1,700 sites in the year to March 2025, covering 30 percent of Kenya's population, while its 2G, 3G and 4G networks together covered more than 97 percent.
• Kenya had 2.1 million 5G mobile data subscriptions at the end of June 2026, up from 1.2 million a year earlier, and 5G users consumed 135.4 million GB in the April to June quarter.
• In the January to March 2026 quarter the average 5G subscription used 53.5 GB, the highest of any technology, against an average of 15.1 GB across all mobile broadband subscriptions.

Le réseau en Kenya : à savoir

• Safaricom offers VoLTE and video over LTE countrywide at no extra cost to customers with a VoLTE capable 4G phone and a 4G SIM, which lets them browse at 4G speed during a call.
• Airtel Kenya introduced VoLTE in May 2023, charged at the same rate as normal calls, so calls on its network can also run over 4G on Android and iOS phones that support it.
• Kenya's international bandwidth arrives on seven undersea cable systems: SEACOM, TEAMS, EASSy, LION 2, DARE 1, PEACE and 2Africa. Lit capacity totalled about 28,950 Gbps in June 2026, while satellite capacity was just 0.33 Gbps.
• In May 2024 a deep sea fibre cut at the Mtunzini teleport station hit the Seacom and EASSy cables serving Kenya. The regulator warned of slow internet for several days and told providers to reroute traffic, while the unaffected TEAMS cable carried local traffic.
• Kenya's broadcasting and telecommunications Principal Secretary said in February 2026 that more than 97 percent of the population is covered by 4G and about 30 percent reached by 5G, while internet use stays below five percent in parts of Marsabit and Mandera.
• The Communications Authority's Universal Service Fund has connected 78 unserved or underserved sub locations to mobile networks in a first phase, targets 101 more in a second, and plans a third phase for 67 further sub locations.
• Mobile penetration reached 165 percent in June 2026, and 97.1 percent of mobile subscriptions were prepaid. Inbound roamers used 763 million MB of data in the April to June quarter, most of it on SIMs from outside the East African Community.