The Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) has warned mobile network providers Telkom Kenya and Airtel Kenya over poor services.
CA’s report on Quality-of Service Performance by mobile network operators 2022-2023, said the two firms had failed to meet their coverage targets.
“Airtel Networks Kenya Limited and Telkom Kenya failed to not only meet their coverage targets but also several most critical Quality of Service Key Performance Indicators particularly the ‘unsuccessful call ratio’ and Data Internet KPIs which are indicators for coverage and internet accessibility,” reads the report.
The report shows that Safaricom passed the 80 per cent mark achieving 90 per cent of the Key Performance Indicators(KPIs) threshold and Airtel and Telkom attained 79 per cent and 65 per cent respectively.
“The Authority, therefore, proceeded to levy a penalty for underperformance in offering quality of service by the two mobile networks and cautioned them with a non-compliance penalty that requires improvement of performance. Failure to follow the notice, a sanction level will be applied,” CA stated.
The report noted a drastic mobile network industry performance drop from 82.3 per cent in the year 2021-2022 to 72.4 per cent in the year 2022-2023.
KPI compliance indicator levels showed that Safaricom garnered 43,727,515 subscribers, Airtel 17,636,324 subscribers and Telkom 2,774,254 subscribers.
The Network provider's Performance within the counties shows Safaricom topped with 87.60 per cent, Airtel 75.07 per cent and Telkom 54.75 per cent.
Safaricom’s lowest score was 63.5 per cent in Vihiga and Kajiado counties while Airtel was 45.45 per cent in Baringo and Laikipia counties and Telkom 36.36 per cent in Muranga and Laikipia counties.
However, it was observed that the two mobile operators showed good performance in urban areas with Airtel scoring 90.91 per cent performing best in Machakos, Mombasa, Nairobi, Kericho, Siaya and Muranga and Telkom scoring 72.73 per cent in Vihiga, Mombasa, Nairobi and Nakuru.
Safaricom was reported to perform better in terms of coverage in most counties such as Nairobi, Mombasa, Lamu, Nyandarua, Kwale, Busia and Kiambu which were the highest performing.
