State flags falling telcos' service quality

Government puts telcos on notice over declining service quality. [iStockphoto]

The government has raised concerns over falling quality of service among telecommunication firms, with some seen to be on the verge of breaching their licensing obligations but also denying Kenyans uninterrupted access to critical services. 

The Ministry of ICT had summoned the chief executives of the three mobile network operators in the country – Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya – to address such issues as increasing dropped calls, outages in data services as well as mobile money services. 

Addressing a press conference after a closed-door meeting with the operators, Principal Secretary Broadcasting and Telecommunications Stephen Isaboke said the Ministry and MNOs agreed on the need to improve the quality of service.  

The meeting, he said, also discussed Kenya’s readiness to host next year’s African Cup of Nations (Afcon) tournament, which would require readiness from telecommunication providers to handle high traffic, noting that user preferences have changed with fans requiring services that can enable them to stream while at such events. 

According to sources, however, this was a moderated statement from the PS from the earlier planned tongue-lashing. 

Peter Ndegwa, Safaricom chief executive, who spoke on behalf of the industry, explained the challenges that the industry has been experiencing, including recent developments in high-rise buildings in major towns that are now obstructing signals. 

“We discussed some of the issues that the industry is facing and needs to address for us to continue to deliver the expected level of service. Some of the issues is to recognise that the country is growing quickly… in urban areas, the biggest problem is high-rise buildings, which is the new kind of environment that we see, which is something that we need to cover,” he said, adding that the industry is also making investments to provide connectivity in far flung areas through the Universal Service Fund (USF), a kitty funded by operators and managed by Communications Authority to put up infrastructure in areas that are not financially viable for telcos to invest in. 

“The most important thing is that all of us have committed to ensure that Kenyans receive the right level of service, regardless of whether you are using a mulika mwizi or a 4G device. Communication is an essential service for everyone, so we need to continue to cover remote places and even where there are insecurity issues.” 

Past quality of service reports that gauge how the operators deliver service across different products, including voice calls and data, show that some players have consistently failed to meet set targets.  

The QOS report for the financial year to June 2025 showed that across the three operators, there was a general downward trend in the industry's average End-to-End Drive Test performance alongside dipping consumer Quality of Experience (QoE) scores, highlighting a pressing sector-wide need for increased infrastructure investment to match growing consumer demand. 

The report published in March shows that Safaricom led the industry with an overall weighted score of 89.72 per cent against the regulatory performance threshold of 80 per cent, meeting targets across all five evaluated regional clusters while achieving a 90.36 per cent score in the critical national End-to-End Drive Tests (which account for 60 per cent of the evaluation weight).  

Airtel also managed to surpass the regulatory minimum with an overall score of 81.14 per cent but failed to meet the 80 per cent target in the national drive tests with a score of 76.47 per cent.  

Telkom Kenya underperformed, failing to meet requirements in any cluster and registering an overall score of just 52.76 per cent.  

The report also shows a drop in how subscribers perceive all three telcos, with the quality of experience (QOE), which measures consumer perception and user satisfaction. 

“The QoE performance for the three mobile networks has Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom registering 70 per cent, 68.4 per cent and 60 per cent, respectively. This performance is lower than the previous year, where the ratings for Safaricom, Airtel, and Telkom were 77.6 per cent, 69.7 per cent and 64.2 per cent, respectively,” said CA in the QOS report.