All mobile operators fail in quality of service standards

The regulator said all mobile operators failed to comply with Kenya’s network quality of service standards for the period 2013/2014. [PHOTO: JENIPHER WACHIE/STANDARD]

Kenyan mobile service providers have yet again failed to meet the quality of service (QoS) targets set by the industry regulator. This has seen criticism levelled at the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) on its ability to police phone operators.

For the fifth year running, the quality of service report by CA, indicates neither Safaricom, Airtel Kenya nor Telkom Kenya’s Orange satisfied service standard thresholds. This comes amid rising criticism that the authority is not enforcing penalties for non-compliance more strictly leading to apathy among service providers.

Data from the report assessing the performance of the mobile networks over the 2013/2014 period indicates that all three service providers attained a score of 62 per cent out of the regulator-set 80 per cent benchmark.

Leading mobile service provider Safaricom, which has been ranked poorest in quality of service over the last three surveys saw its overall performance rise by 12 per cent from 50 per cent in the previous year.

Essar Telcom’s yu Mobile which was still operational at the time the index was being prepared was ranked least in quality of service scoring an overall 50 per cent across all the key performance indicators. The CA annual quality of service report assesses telecommunication service providers along eight key performance indicators including completed calls, dropped calls rate, call set up time, call set up success rate, handover success rate, speech quality and receive/transmit level.

“All of the operators however complied with QoS targets on handover success rate, call drop rate, call set up time and signal strength,” indicated the CA in it’s report.

“The performance on speech quality improved tremendously for three operators except Essar. There was degraded performance by all operators on three key performance indicators (KPIs), namely, call set up success rate, call completion rate and call block rate.”

Mobile service providers in the country have traditionally performed poorly on most of the KPI’s with all four failing to meet their compliance targets in the latest report released early this year.

Safaricom and Orange have both disputed the report in the past questioning the parameters and stating that the findings differed from independent studies commissioned by the companies.

In it’s sustainability report 2014, Safaricom indicates that it contracted consulting firm Deloitte to conduct its own independent survey on its network quality. Safaricom indicates that it commissioned independent drive tests in 13 towns across 5,500km/s, 20,000 voice calls and 5,000 data sessions.

poor service

“Safaricom has an overall voice success ratio and speech quality that is at par with the competition and has the lowest dropped calls ratio,” stated the telco in the report. Safaricom further stated that it’s data services were ahead of the competition having the fastest web browsing, doubled broadband download throughputs, uploads throughputs and standard video downloads.

The CA has tried on several occasions to mete stronger penalties for poor quality among mobile phone operators including a proposal for providers in Kenya to pay up to 1 per cent of their annual turnover in penalties. Previous penalties were set at Sh500, 000 considered very low as a disincentive for poor service prompting the regulator to call for a review in the law.

“The penalty has now been enhanced following the amendment of the law such that it shall be based on up to 0.2 per cent of gross turnover of an operator which will make it significantly more deterrent,” said CA in a statement yesterday.

“The Authority is further working with the operators in ensuring that they are meeting new roll-out obligations as stated in their licences.”

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