CA to fine Safaricom and Airtel for poor voice calls and slow internet

For millions of Kenyans, including myself, this regulatory crackdown is long overdue. We constantly pay premium prices for aggressively marketed data bundles and airtime promotions, only to watch our critical calls drop midway or see our internet connections slow to an agonizing crawl. I cannot count the number of times I have been forced to wander around my neighborhood simply hunting for a stable signal. Telcos cannot keep charging top dollar for substandard service.

Thankfully, the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) finally agrees. Moving away from its historical approach of merely issuing toothless warnings and compliance notices, the regulator has drafted sweeping new rules. The CA will hit telecommunications companies where it hurts most: their revenues. Operators now face severe financial penalties of up to 0.2% of their annual turnover if they fail to meet a newly elevated 90% Quality of Service (QoS) threshold, up from the previous 80%.

For the year ending June 2025, Safaricom led with 89.72%, Airtel followed with 81.14%, and Telkom trailed at 52.76%. The report shows Safaricom came closest to the new 90% target, but still fell short. Airtel and Telkom were much further behind. Heck, even if the new penalties had already been in place on the previous full-year assessment, all three operators would have been exposed. Business Daily reports that for the year to June 2024, Safaricom scored 85.71%, Airtel 79.74%, and Telkom 55.02%. It is also worth noting that the CA’s own quality-of-experience survey for 2024-2025 found customers rating voice quality, call reliability, and internet speed far more harshly than operators may like to admit.

Based on the 0.2% turnover penalty rule, Safaricom could have faced fines of roughly KES 777 million, while Airtel would have surrendered around KES 260 million. Even though Safaricom recently beat Airtel in the 2026 nPerf mobile internet test, the reality is that no operator is currently hitting the 90% regulatory standard nationwide.

What makes these draft rules truly game-changing is the county-based enforcement model. The CA will evaluate operators and apply quarterly sanctions per county. Operators can no longer mask weak rural network coverage behind strong national averages buoyed by Nairobi’s superior infrastructure. Industry players historically blame rising infrastructure costs and vandalism for poor rural service, but consumers should not bear the brunt of operational challenges. Luckily, satellite connectivity is on the rise thanks to partnerships with the likes of Starlink and Amazon, something that Airtel and Safaricom are fully leveraging to boost rural network connectivity.

Under the new technical measurements, voice services account for 50% of the overall compliance score, while mobile data quality contributes 45%. The CA is also enforcing strict standards on emerging technologies, requiring standalone 5G networks to maintain latency levels below 10 milliseconds. We recently highlighted how the Kenya mobile network quality report ignores gaming and video in its metrics. Mandating a sub-10ms latency for 5G proves the regulator is finally acknowledging the high-speed, low-delay demands of modern digital consumers, gamers, and remote workers who depend on stable broadband.

Kenya’s rapidly expanding digital economy relies entirely on connectivity. When our network connections drop, we lose income, miss online learning opportunities, and stall digital commerce. This penalty framework represents a necessary intervention in a sector that has grown increasingly complacent despite splashing billions on 4G and 5G upgrades.

However, the CA should not stop with mobile network operators. We urgently need to expand this regulatory crackdown to other sectors. Pay-TV companies and home digital service providers continuously take money from Kenyans while delivering abysmal, interrupted service. Telcos are officially on notice.