Iristel Kenya, Safaricom’s New Headache

Iristel, a Canadian global telecommunications service provider, has announced its expansion into Kenya as its first African market after winning a legal battle in court with East Africa’s big telecommunication company, Safaricom.

The Canadian firm which was founded in 1999 in Markham, Ontario; operates Canada’s largest facilities-based local voice network. Its owns brands such as Sugar Mobile and an Over – The- Top (OTT) app where text messages and phone calls can be transmitted through data, has been working under Safaricom for awhile here in Kenya through partnership.

The firm which also owns Ice Wireless, an LTE- A carrier that operates in Northern part of Canada and Quebec, its entrance in Kenya, brings out a tough pressure and competition to Kenya’s telecommunication companies.

Behind the legal battle, Kenya’s Safaricom telecommunications firm had claimed, Iristel Kenya will engage into SIM boxing, which is a threat to national security. As the case, Iristel Kenya will now provide services for internet-based calls through Safaricom’s network.

After a legal win, Iristel CEO Samer Bishay, stated “for this initial rollout of our global expansion, we will provide the capability to purchase Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunks, which can be aggregated with our onnet footprint, and Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs).”

According Iristel firm CEO, lristel voice service offers an expansive facilities-based local telephone number coverage and inbound voice origination service that enables Over-The-Top (OTT) and voice service providers the ability to offer innovative voice and messaging services to their business or consumer users.

This wholesale service, aggregates all calls to Iristel-managed telephone numbers and hands them off to single or multiple customer IP addresses. Iristel customers use this service to deploy next-generation primary line voice services to consumers, to augment their toll-free numbers with more cost-effective local numbers that also provide a local touch, or to create new mobile or OTT-based applications for consumers.

Kenya, being one of the developing country in East Africa, has so far attracted communication firms such as Google and Microsoft, that have established their offices in Nairobi. However, now with Iristel Kenya, Kenyans will enjoy unique voice service network and routing flexibility.