Kenya’s telecoms regulator – the Communications Authority of Kenya has put Airtel and Telkom Kenya on the spot for failing to meet set minimum in call quality. The two mobile service providers are accused of failing to provide quality services on their networks which is supposed to exceed 80 percent. This happened in at least 33 counties across the country in the year ending 2020.
According to the CA report, Telkom Kenya scored 73 percent while Airtel achieving 52 percent in a survey conducted within the year. In comparison, Safaricom which enjoys a massive share of Kenya’s mobile phone users because of MPESA, managed to attain 92 percent in the same survey. The Authority has placed the two service providers on the spot, to establish whether they’ll improve their services this year.
According to the report, Airtel and Telkom were both issued with a notice of non-compliance for not meeting minimum threshold in voice services which is set at 80 percent. The report further says the Authority will be evaluating their performance this year to confirm whether they have improved on the suggested improvements.
According to regulations in the mobile services sector, operators that do not meet minimum quality standards risk being fined up to 0.2 percent of their revenues, the amount could total into hundreds of millions. According to the survey done, Airtel subscribers from Kajiado, Kiambu and Narok counties experienced the highest outages and disruptions when making calls. Airtel scored 20 percent in the three counties and 40 percent in Makueni. Subscribers in Kwale, Laikipia, Nyandarua, Murang’a, Kirinyaga and Nandi counties rated Airtel lowest at 20 percent, while those in Kisumu gave the telco highest rating at 100 percent.