theBIGbox: Meet Safaricom’s media streaming box, Mi-Fi and FTA decoder in one

safaricom's thebigbox

After disrupting the mobile banking industry, Kenya’s Safaricom believes it can equally change the home entertainment sector as well. The Mobile telecom company is betting what it has called “theBIGbox”,  a clever Android-powered Free-to-air decoder that doubles as a Mi-Fi as well.

theBIGbox: A Mi-Fi or internet modem

Announced yesterday, the Big Box connects to a 3/4G network through a Safaricom simcard to provide internet services to home users. With this devices, users can share their internet connection with their family members through a hotspot feature similar to how ordinary Mi-Fis or internet routers work.

Advertisement - Continue reading below

theBIGbox: A media streaming box

Safaricom’s Android-powered device comes with impressive specifications of 1GB of RAM, 4 GB internal storage, a USB and HDMI port, SD Card slot for media playback for pictures, music and videos plus TV recording capabilities. This means you could connect an external Hard drive and record TV shows or play videos on the big screen.

But since the box is connected to the internet, Safaricom is also touting the device as an online video streaming box. Users will be able to stream popular video sharing sites such as Youtube to their television sets.

theBIGbox: An FTA decoder

The android-powered device boosts over 30 Free-To-Air (FTA) TV channels that include K24, Citizen TV, KTN, NTV, Kingdom TV, Express Live TV, Kiss TV, Hope TV, Family TV, Youth TV , QTV among others. Below is a complete list of FTA channels on Safaricom’s Bigbox;

Data plans, Price and availability

Safaricom is well aware that this box is intended to boost its data revenues. So the network has carefully crafted data plans specifically for the box and they include;

  •  6 GB – Ksh 999
  • 10 GB – Ksh 1,500
  •  20 GB – Ksh 2,000
  •  50 GB – Ksh 4,000

The Big box is a three-in-one android-powered device acting as an internet modem, a media streaming box and an FTA TV decoder. The device is currently goes for a price of Ksh 9,999.  Safaricom is allowing online orders on its website where you could pay a deposit of Ksh 4,999 and pay the remaining balance in six monthly installments of Ksh 999.

Advertisement - Continue reading below

Image: Safaricom

LIKE WHAT YOU ARE READING?

Sign up to our Newsletter for expert advice and tips of how to get the most out of your Tech Gadgets

One thought on “theBIGbox: Meet Safaricom’s media streaming box, Mi-Fi and FTA decoder in one

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.