If your relative is turning 18 this year, you are probably under pressure to get them a smartphone.
Once they get that smartphone, one of the first things they will probably do is open an account on TikTok and start sharing videos with friends, and the world.
The result? More than half of Safaricom’s mobile data traffic (55 per cent) is streaming traffic on TikTok and YouTube.
This phenomenon has people like Alex Gathogo, Senior Manager, Service Assurance at Safaricom, constantly on their toes, and Technology Network teams adjusting their plans.
The reality of the change in consumer trends hit home on the night of Sunday, July 14, as Spain and England played in the finals of the European football competition popularly known as the Euros.
As Spain worked its way to a 2-1 win, Safaricom recorded the highest mobile data traffic it has experienced since its establishment 24 years ago – 3.964 petabytes.
3.964 petabytes is a tremendous amount of data as one petabyte is one quadrillion bytes or one million terabytes.
1,000 megabytes (MB) is 1 gigabyte (GB), 1,000 GB is 1 terabyte (TB), and 1,000 TB is 1 petabyte.
To bring it closer home, you would need almost 100,000 phones, each with a capacity to hold 128 GB, to hold all the data that was streaming through the network on that day.
For the technology team, led by George Njuguna, the Chief Technology and Information Officer at Safaricom, hitting that milestone was exciting.
There were similar spikes late June as Kenyans, many of them in the generation that turned 18 over the last five years, protested against this year’s Finance Bill.
“We had people taking photos & videos and uploading them on various social media platforms such as Tiktok, Twitter and Facebook,” said Alex
Alex said the technology team was surprised by the traffic because it came earlier than expected.
“Our current traffic levels have already reached the projections we had set for December. This unexpected surge is both an exciting opportunity and a significant challenge,” said Alex.
“It’s remarkable how the landscape has shifted, with TikTok now driving more traffic than YouTube. This change highlights the evolving preferences of our new consumer base, particularly those in the 18-19 age bracket who are gravitating towards the most popular app,” said Alex.
The social media platform’s popularity has grown so significantly that Safaricom had to engage TikTok to establish a local Content Delivery Network (CDN) to better serve its users.
This move is a clear indication of how influential TikTok has become in the Kenyan digital landscape, necessitating infrastructural changes to accommodate the increased usage and ensure a smoother experience for users.
Being able to access streaming also generates a desire for better-quality videos.
“You can choose what quality of video to watch,” said George. “Anytime you’re streaming, whether you’re on YouTube or television, you have an option of the quality. More and more, we’re seeing Kenyans selecting higher-quality videos.”
The Technology team views the unexpected surge as an exciting opportunity and a significant challenge.
To ensure there is sufficient capacity to serve the increasing demand for data, said Alex, the groundwork must be done well in advance.
“We endeavour to carry as much traffic as possible, and so we project what we would potentially carry in the next three, four, or five months and prepare for this,” said Alex.
Preparation includes capacity upgrades to ensure that all infrastructure components, including the radios that connect users to the network through base transmitter stations, Transmission Media, Core Network, and Upstream Internet cables, are sufficient to handle the demand.
“In our planning process, we prioritize the highest peak values. For instance, if we project that the peak value in two months will be X, we base our capacity planning on that peak. This approach ensures that we can handle the traffic during peak times, thereby maintaining a positive customer experience and maximizing our opportunities to convert traffic into revenue. Failing to plan for these peaks could result in lost traffic and, consequently, missed revenue opportunities,” said Alex.
For instance, at the beginning of this year, Safaricom’s entire international throughput of the data it could carry – how much information their systems could carry – was about 500 gigabytes. This has now been increased to 700 gigabytes.
Connecting to all six undersea cables that have landed in Kenya also helps keep the traffic flowing.
As part of their preparation, Safaricom utilizes historical data to inform their projections. For example, if traffic has increased by approximately 20 percent over the past three to four years, we project a similar 20 percent growth in traffic over the upcoming year.
Apart from historical data, there is also another dynamic factor, which is new consumer trends as the telco’s customer base continues to evolve.
TikTok, whose popularity has grown tremendously over the last two years, and is now the leading app in terms of both user numbers and traffic generated, is a good example of this evolution in trends.
For George, the ability to handle the high traffic demand on the night of July 14 was proof that the bet on data was working.
It also sets the expectations higher for everyone.
“It’s being ready way ahead, and then that means lots of other players, be it local content providers or international content providers, can be sure their content will land here and in the best quality in Kenya,” George said.
The next target? 4 petabytes in the months to come.
