Telcos to offer subscribers free credit as compensation for outages
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) has announced that telecommunications companies will be required to provide free credit to their consumers as compensation for system disruptions.
The telcos; Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom Kenya will be required to provide subscribers with rebates equal to the amount of airtime they would have used during the outage period.
“A licensee shall develop and implement an outage credit policy in situations where service is unavailable due to system interruptions and not as a result of scheduled and publicised maintenance, emergency, natural disaster or force majeure, accidental damage of infrastructure by third parties, terrorism, and vandalism,” the guidelines state.
The interim rate will be in force for one year, beginning August 1, 2022, and will be followed by new rates depending on the results of the current Network Cost Study, according to the announcement.
MTRs are fees that a mobile service provider charges other telecom service providers for terminating calls on its network.
CA stated on December 23, 2021, that it will reduce the MTR per minute to Sh0.12 from Sh0.99 earlier this year, however the decision was temporarily halted when Safaricom filed a complaint with the Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal.
Instead, Safaricom, which has a 64 per cent market share, wanted the prices to be raised to reflect the true cost of operations.
“A licensee shall offer a rebate to subscribers or issue credit equivalent to usage over a similar period that outage lasted,” state the guidelines.
“The outage credit policy shall detail circumstances when credit, rebate or refund applies, process, procedure and timelines when rebate, credit or refund shall be issued to customer/subscriber.”
According to the authority’s 2021 figures, Airtel and Telkom have a market share of 27 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively.
Dominance in the market Small telecommunications companies, on the other hand, accused the regulator of bias and ignoring market dominance in the allotment of mobile spectrum, giving Safaricom a competitive edge.
