Safaricom slashes prices of its 4G Wi-Fi routers by 40%

Safaricom has slashed the prices of its 4G Home Wi-Fi routers by as much as 40%.

The Adrian 3300 1, from one of Safaricom’s partners, Adrian Kenya, which has been retailing at Kshs 10,000 is now going for Kshs 6,000 while the Huawei router that has been going for Kshs 11,000 is now going for Kshs 7,000.

Buyers of either of the two routers are getting free 30GB of data to go with them during this period when they are on offer.

Safaricom’s 4G Wi-Fi, under which these routers are available is its offering to the millions of Kenyans whose homes have not yet been passed by the company’s Fibre-to-the-Home product Safaricom Home Fibre or, probably, any fixed internet solution, for that matter.

Given that 4G network prevalence in the country is high (at 97%), the said Kenyans can use the same network they have access to on their phones wherever they are to connect to the internet on multiple other devices like computers, TVs and others (up to 32 devices at any given time). The same is also available to businesses.

Pricing for 4G Wi-Fi packages starts at Kshs 3,000 for a 90GB data bundle that lasts for a month and goes all the way to Kshs 12,500 for 400GB data that lasts for a similar period.

4G Wi-Fi services have been offered by Safaricom over the last 4 years under different names. Starting last year, the company is also offering 5G Wi-Fi services as well in select areas across the country.

Though offering significantly higher speeds (starting at 10Mbps and going all the way to ten times that – 100Mbps!) than the 4G Wi-Fi service (whose speeds are capped at 5Mbps), the 5G Wi-Fi service is prohibitively dear at Kshs 25,000 for the router, a one-off setup and delivery fee of Kshs 5,000 and data bundle offerings that start at Kshs 3,500 and go all the way up to Kshs 15,000. Given the limited availability of 5G in the country, at least for now, it is the 4G Wi-Fi service that should make sense for many.