Companies

Safaricom disputes regulator’s assessment of its voice service

wangusi

CAK director general Francis Wangusi. The regulator’s 2013 Quality of Service study graded Safaricom’s service as poor. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP

Safaricom is headed for a fresh clash with the Communications Authority (CA) on the regulator’s assessment of the quality of its voice service.

The Nairobi bourse-listed firm says findings of an independent consultant shows the telco has met all but one of the targets set by the regulator, contrary to CA’s 2013 Quality of Service (QoS) study that graded Safaricom’s service with the poorest score as its rivals also fell short.

This is the second time Kenya’s biggest mobile operator has hired an external expert to assess its quality of service, underlining Safaricom’s push to have its network given a clean bill of health.

The telcos are expected to deliver overall performance of at least 80 per cent on eight indicators to be compliant, but Safaricom had the worst score of 50 per cent in the year to June while Airtel, Telkom and Essar each achieved 62.5 per cent.

“We continued to be concerned with the results of the CA QoS results,” said Safaricom CEO Bob Collymore in the firm’s 2014 sustainability report.

“As part of our “best network in Kenya programme”, an independent company was contracted to carry out independent audits and tests to measure our network performance relative to other mobile service providers,” said Mr Collymore.

Safaricom, which paid a Sh500,000 fine for failing to meet the set quality levels last year, said it is engaged in discussions with the regulator “to understand discrepancies between CA QoS results and the independent results.”

The poor performance by all the four telcos means CA raked in Sh2 million in fines from Safaricom, Airtel, yuMobile and Telkom Orange.

Safaricom has consistently failed to meet the regulator’s benchmarks on voice service quality, having scored 50 per cent in the year to June 2012 and 25 per cent a year earlier; but its own private study last year returned a pass with 87.5 per cent. The telco scored 37.5 per cent in the inaugural network assessment in 2010 and improved to 75 per cent the following year.

The Communications Authority had tied Safaricom’s licence renewal – which lapsed on June 30, 2014 – to payment of $27 million (Sh2.2 billion) in fees and meeting the set quality standards.

But the regulator went ahead and issued Safaricom with a fresh 10-year licence despite the company failing to meet the targets on key performance indicators. Airtel’s operating licence is due for renewal in February 2015.