System to allow customers to monitor telcos' services

Mobile telephone mast. [Photo: Courtesy]

Consumers will start rating their mobile phone providers on quality of service this year.

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) has launched a new system to monitor the quality of service of telecommunication providers under new parameters.

In addition to measuring network performance and quality of end-to-end calls used in the past, the new system will measure consumer experience as well as the quality of data services.

“The new system will aid in monitoring the quality of data services provided by internet service providers because there have been numerous complaints from consumers of mobile data bundles either running out too fast or the data being throttled,” said CA Director General Francis Wangusi.

The Sh400 million system includes mobile units to be deployed in five regions to collect data on network service quality.

Performance score

The information will be relayed to CA’s headquarters on Waiyaki Way and aggregated with information from service providers as well as customer satisfaction surveys to give a performance score. 

Customers will be invited to rate service providers on aspects such as network availability, service quality, service tariffs and customer care.

The new system comes on the back of criticism that the regulator was lenient to service providers that consistently failed to meet standards.

A recent quality of service report indicates that all the three main mobile service providers - Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom - failed the regulator’s threshold.

Airtel and Telkom scored 75 per cent out of the CA’s 80 per cent benchmark while Safaricom scored 62.5 per cent on all eight parameters. Failing to pass the test attracts a penalty of Sh500,000 on each failed performance indicator