Regulator’s latest report into telco service quality
Safaricom provided the best service to Kenyans last year, followed by Telkom Kenya and finally Airtel Kenya. However, even the ‘worst mobile cellular service’ in the year to June 2021 has showed a remarkable improvement on the previous, reports Kenya’s daily newspaper, The Nation.
A quality of service report by the telecoms regulator the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) found that Airtel showed the most improvement among peers, but still remains in last place. It is coming up fast on the rails, however. Airtel posted a service quality score of 65.45% last year, up from 52 percent in the year ending June 2020.
The regulator has set an 80 percent service quality compliance threshold for the service providers. Airtel Kenya’s ability to raise its game may be linked to several improvements to its network to meet the regulatory minimum threshold on the quality of calls across the country. Last year revealed that 270 sites were upgraded from 2G and 3G sites to 4G while more than 400 sites were added in ‘upcountry towns’ and highways, said the Nation.
Airtel upgrades
Some of the locations that benefited from the Airtel upgrade and installation of new sites include Kilifi, Marsabit, Bungoma, Nyeri, Siaya, Kakamega, Nyandarua, Turkana Bomet and Uasin Gishu, said Airtel Kenya Managing Director, Prasanta Das Sarma.
The CA report found Telkom Kenya to be second-best service provider in the year to June 2021. The quality of service from Telkom Kenya is going in the wrong direction. Last year it fell to 67.5%, down five and a half points from its 73% in 2020. It was the only telco to get worse in 2021.
Telkom slipping
Kenya’s largest operator Safaricom retained its ranking as the best mobile service provider. In the year to June 2021, the telco posted a service quality score of 92.7%, a slight improvement on the 92% score the previous year. This made it the only compliant service provider.
Telcos falling short of requirements on the quality of calls and other service outages risk a fine of up to 0.2 per cent of their revenues, which could run into millions of dollars, according to The Nation.
Safaricom first
“The authority monitors the quality of mobile cellular services provided by mobile network operators to ensure that consumers are protected. The authority monitored the quality of service for the three mobile network operators across 44 counties,” CA said.
The assessment examines how an operator performs on eight key parameters in different parts of the country. These include the call set-up time; completion of calls, call set-up success rate, the number of attempts needed; speech quality and unexpected terminations. Other criteria include the call handover success and the strength of received.