CA Puts Telkom and Airtel Kenya on Notice Over Service Quality
CA is monitoring the two to ensure compliance
Kenya’s ICT regulator, Communication Authority of Kenya, CA, has put two of the country’s telcos on notice over service quality. The two telcos, Airtel and Telkom Kenya failed to meet the 80 per cent minimum threshold for service quality across 33 countries from June 2019 to June 2020, according to a survey performed by CA in early 2020.
CA Quality of Service survey involved monitoring different services offered by Kenya’s three Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), among them the quality of Voice, Data and Short Message Service(SMS).
“As Airtel’s and Telkom’s performance did not meet the set target of 80 per cent for voice services they were issued notices of non–compliance that require the firms to improve their quality of services in the country in compliance with the set threshold,” the regulator said in a recently published report.
According to CA, Telkom Kenya’s service quality average was just 7 per cent shy of the minimum threshold – 73 per cent – while Airtel, the second-largest telco in the country, had poor service quality averaging 52 per cent.
Kenya’s leading telco, Safaricom, scored stellar performance in the survey with an average quality of service at 92 per cent.
Typically, the CA issues warning for non-compliance and gives the affected firms specific timelines to improve service quality. Failure to which, a company could be forced to surrender up to 0.2 per cent of their revenues. Seemingly low, but the actual figure could easily run into dozens of millions of shillings.
The market regulator is monitoring the two telcos’ performance to check if they’ve improved their services.
“Operators have committed to put in place remedial measures and plans for network improvements and shall be subjected to further evaluation of compliance in preceding seasons for sustained compliance and regulatory interventions.”
However, the overall Average Quality of Service Performance stood at 72 per cent across the 33 surveyed counties. The best-covered county is Kisumu with 100 per cent, and Tharaka-Nithi ranked lowest with an average quality of service at 47 per cent.
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