Kenya’s leading network operator Safaricom are biding its time over how to react to the Communications Commission of Kenya’s (CCK) attack on its service quality as preparations are made for the renewal of their 10 year license.
HumanIPO reported earlier today the CCK had outlined the requirements for Safaricom to get its license renewed next year, which included quality improvements and the KSh2.36 billion (US$27 million) fee.
Francis Wagusi, CCK director general, had said while Safaricom had significantly contributed to the economy, developed innovative products and services and met most its licence obligations, the mobile operator needs to up its game in regard to meeting the quality of service standards.
Bob Collymore, Safaricom’s chief executive officer (CEO), declined to comment, but HumanIPO understands the operator is not happy with some of the language used by the CCK and was taken back by their sole focus on Safaricom when it is not the only operator to produce poor key performance indicator (KPI) results.
Collymore said they would only make an official comment once the license details are published in the Kenya Gazette.
The operator paid KSh7.91 billion (US$90.6 million) in tax during the last financial year.
HumanIPO understands Safaricom also wants assurances its rival operators will face the same license requirements and terms as it does.
Last year both Airtel Kenya and Safaricom were not quality of service (QoS) compliant as they met five and four KPIs out of eight respectively.
Essar Telecom (yu) and Orange Kenya each met seven out of eight KPIs.
The regulator has set the minimum QoS compliance level at 80 per cent.
The CCK surveys quality of service on eight parameters: completed calls rate, call set-up success rate, dropped calls, blocked calls, speech quality, handover success rate, call set-up time and signal strength.
