Kenya’s telecommunications sector is heading toward a high-stakes regulatory showdown in 2026, as the current Mobile Termination Rates (MTRs) are set to expire on February 28, 2026.
The MTRs are the costs that operators charge each other to allow customers to communicate across networks.
In March 2024, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) capped both mobile and fixed termination at $0.0032 (Sh0.41) per minute, down from the previous rate of $0.0045 (Sh0.58). This followed an earlier, more aggressive proposal to slash rates to as low as $0.0009 (Sh0.12) back in January 2022.
The upcoming 2026 review is again expected to present another chapter in a decade-long feud that has seen Kenyan telcos trade legal blows, lobby aggressively, and accuse one another of economic sabotage.
A previous cut in the rate in 2022 from $0.0077$ (KES 0.99) to $0.0009$ (KES 0.12) sparked a war between Kenyan operators. While Telkom Kenya supported the move, saying the review was quite timely and was a progressive step towards making voice services more affordable and accessible to Kenyans, Safaricom opposed it. Safaricom even went ahead and filed a case with the Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal (CAMAT) opposing the move. The matter was, however, settled out of court with both telcos, including Airtel, agreeing to settle for $0.0045$ (KES 0.58).
The latest industry data from CA for the quarter ending September reveals a massive disparity in how voice traffic flows. Safaricom still dominates voice with 61.19% of traffic, 18.3 billion of 29.9 billion minutes. Crucially, only 7.8% of Safaricom’s calls were “off-net”, meaning they ended on a rival network.
In contrast, smaller players like Airtel and Telkom Kenya face a steeper uphill battle. Airtel handled 11.5 billion minutes (38.59% share), but nearly 30% of its traffic was off-network. For Telkom Kenya, the situation is even more dire, with approximately half of its calls terminating on rival networks.
The upcoming review reopens a familiar tension: dominant operators benefit when more calls stay on-net, while smaller telcos pay out a higher share of termination fees, making it harder to compete on price.
The push for a more aggressive rate cut has gained significant international backing. In a scathing assessment released in November 2025, the World Bank flagged Kenya’s telecom regulations as structurally outdated, arguing they favor incumbent firms.
The Bank noted that the current cap of $0.0032$ (Sh0.41) per minute, while lower than the previous $0.0045$ (Sh0.58), is still significantly higher than the actual cost of termination, which a 2022 study estimated at just $0.0005$ (Sh0.06). Regional comparisons further isolate Kenya: Tanzania has committed to dropping its rates to approximately $0.0006$ (Sh0.079) by 2027, and Uganda recently slashed its rates to $0.0073$ (Sh0.935).
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