You Will Now Be Compensated By Telecommunication Companies For Poor Network
You stand now to be compensated by telecommunication companies as a result poor connectivity in voice, SMS and data services.
This is as a result of the new draft regulations, which were published on 10th September for public comment, seek to compel the telecommunications providers to either pay or offer credit equivalent to the time mobile phone users are without voice and SMS services.
The new rules are aimed at shielding millions of mobile phone clients from poor services related to network outages, including lack of Internet connections.
When enforced, telecommunication companies Such as Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya will start bearing the cost of the losses incurred by their customers as a result of poor network connectivity.
According to a report published by The Business Daily, the regulator is permitted by law to sanction any telecommunications company that inconveniences customers through service interruptions as a result of omission on its part.
An operator found in breach of the law risks a fine of up to 0.2 percent of its revenues, which could run into hundreds of millions.
Now, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) also wants to include compensation to mobile clients that are usually affected during the outages.
The compensation rule will not however, be enforced on disruptions caused by scheduled maintenance by the Telcos.
“A licensee shall develop and implement an outage credit policy in situations where service is unavailable due to system failure and not as a result of scheduled and publicised maintenance, emergency or natural disaster,” say the draft rules.
Kenya currently has over 55.2 million mobile phone subscribers who made 58.78 billion minutes of calls, up from 39.19 billion in 2015.
When implement, Kenya will be on the same level with most of the European and most western countries that implemented the law.
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