The Old Safaricom set-top box has been transformed into a new digital TV and internet box. [ Photo/Techweez ]
The giant telco company Safaricom has once again relaunched its Internet-enabled digital TV decoders to the market after suspending its sales twice due to technical malfunctions.Safaricom began selling the new Digital TV and Internet Box last month at a price of Sh9,999 on its outlet shops in Nairobi and Mombasa. According to Safaricom's director for consumer business Sylvia Mulinge, the new set-top box has a Wi-Fi capability, an embedded 4G SIM card slot, installed second latest Android software Nougat 7.0 and will also be able to air several free-to-air channels.“The box is available in Nairobi and Mombasa and we shall be rolling it out in coming weeks to other towns where we have our 4G network,” noted Mulinge. Safaricom first launched the decoder in 2015 following the analog to Digital migration as it saw the sales hit 1,500 devices before receiving a negative feedback from users who complained of poor WIFI function forcing the firm to stop the sales and address the malfunction.It was not until November 2015 when the firm relaunched the set-top box at a reduced Price in a strategy to make a comeback following a low uptake of the devices. The device was later removed quietly from the market as it underwent further improvement only to appear last month.Mr. Mulinge has noted that the first boxes had problems in storage an issue which he says had been resolved as the new devices will have an internal storage space of 32 gigabytes and will allow users to download and store movies for offline viewing.Mulinge added that the new box has Netflix and show max embedded in it.