Customer complaints over dropped calls (normal and internet-backed calls) have surged back to levels last seen two years ago, signalling poor quality of service from Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya.
An analysis of data from the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) shows that complaints that subscribers lodged with the regulator over poor quality of voice more than doubled to 85 in the year that ended last month from 38 a year earlier.
The last time that complaints for dropped calls (normal calls and internet-backed calls) and poor quality of the service were higher than the current numbers was in June 2022 with 90 cases.
A rebound in the complaints made over dropped calls point to falling quality of network offered by the telcos despite fines and warnings from the regulator.
CA early this year said that it had fined Airtel and Telkom Kenya over poor quality of service and directed them to improve their network across the country.
“The Authority (CA) has, therefore, proceeded to levy a penalty for underperformance in offering quality of service in the mobile network subsector by Telkom Kenya and Airtel Networks,” CA said early this year.
Subscribers escalate the complaints to CA if the telcos do not resolve them, meaning that the number could be higher.
The telcos have over the years been keen to increase the number of cell towers in a bid to grow network coverage and take on the dominant Safaricom.
The spike in dropped calls for both normal and the internet-backed ones brings to question whether the telcos upgraded their network coverage in light of CA’s warnings and fines.
Safaricom is the dominant telco with 65 percent of the market or 16.47 billion minutes as at March while Airtel was a distant second with 33.9 percent (8.54 billion minutes) and Telkom Kenya third with 114.17 million minutes (0.45 percent).
Telkom Kenya, The Equity Bank-owned Finserve and Jamii Telecommunications share the remaining less than two percent of the local market share.
The regulator in a review of the quality of service by the telcos said that Safaricom had complied with the quality of service across the country except in Vihiga and Kajiado counties.
CA further said that the network coverage of Telkom Kenya significantly drops after five kilometres from town centre and serving cells.
The regulator added that the network of Airtel and Telkom Kenya is below-average in rural areas and far-flung areas.
“It was further noted that the Mobile Network Operators are not performing optimally even in areas where they rolled out services long ago,” CA said in a separate report that reviewed quality of service by the telcos.
In the year that ended June, complaints over fraudulent calls and SMSs surged to 114 from 19 in the year that ended June 2023 while complaints over billing charges rose to 61 from five in the same period.
