Safaricom Home Fibre customers can pause internet while away, but 5G Home users can’t

I recently came across a marketing message from Savanna Fibre that caught my attention.

The company was promoting what it calls a simple but useful feature: the ability to pause your internet subscription when you’re away and resume it when you return. No need to keep paying for a connection that’s sitting idle at home while you’re travelling.

At first glance, it sounded like one of those perks that smaller internet providers use to differentiate themselves from established players. But it also got me thinking about my own setup. I’ve been using Safaricom’s 5G Home router service for close to a year now. Like many people, I occasionally travel for several days or even weeks at a time. During those periods, the router remains plugged in at home, doing absolutely nothing, yet the subscription continues running as normal.

So I decided to ask Safaricom a simple question: Can customers temporarily suspend their Home Internet services and reactivate them when they’re back?

The hidden Safaricom Home Fibre benefit

Instead of receiving a direct yes-or-no answer specifically about the 5G Home service, Safaricom’s Home team responded with the following clarification:

"Kindly note that this functionality is available for home fibre services and post paid  services. For home fibre services you only need to make the request from the nominated contact number via call or email from the registered email. For postpaid services suspension request has to be done via registered email for us to action. Thank you."

The company further explained that Home Fibre customers only need to make the request using their nominated contact number through a phone call or by sending an email from their registered email address. In other words, Safaricom Home Fibre subscribers can effectively pause their service when they won’t be using it and have it restored later.

That’s a useful feature, especially for customers who travel frequently, own holiday homes, work away from home for extended periods, or simply don’t want to pay for internet they aren’t using. The surprising part is that Safaricom doesn’t appear to actively market or publicly highlight this capability. Not even in the official FAQs.

In fact, I only discovered it after sending an email inquiry.

But not for Safaricom 5G Home users

The email response also appears to answer the question many 5G Home customers might be asking. Safaricom specifically mentioned Home Fibre and postpaid services. Notably absent from that list is Safaricom’s 5G Home offering, suggesting that customers on the company’s popular 5G Home plans cannot temporarily suspend their subscriptions in the same way fibre customers can.

For users like me, that’s disappointing.

One of the major selling points of fixed wireless internet is flexibility. The router can be moved around, setup is simpler than fibre, and coverage continues expanding across the country. Yet when it comes to subscription flexibility, Home Fibre customers seem to have an advantage.

The ability to pause a service may sound minor until you actually need it. Imagine travelling upcountry for a month, leaving the country for several weeks, or spending a semester away from home. With a pause feature, you don’t have to choose between cancelling your subscription entirely or continuing to pay for unused service.

You simply suspend it and pick up where you left off when you return; however, Safaricom did not mention how long you’re allowed to pause your service. I can imagine they won’t let you pause the service for months or even a year.

This is exactly the convenience that Savanna Fibre is currently promoting as a customer-friendly feature. Safaricom, meanwhile, appears to offer something similar for fibre customers but not for subscribers on its 5G Home plans.

A feature more people should know about

The bigger takeaway here is that many Safaricom Home Fibre customers may not even realize this option exists. Unlike speed upgrades, bundle promotions, or new coverage announcements, the ability to suspend a Home Fibre connection isn’t something the company prominently advertises.

That means customers who could potentially save money during extended periods away from home may never know the option exists unless they specifically ask. The most annoying bit is that even if you know about it, there’s no easy way to pause your subscription from the My OneApp. You must call using the number or email associated with your Safaricom Home Fibre account.

And that’s exactly what happened in my case.

A casual marketing message from a competing internet provider led to a question, which led to an email, which ultimately revealed a feature Safaricom has apparently supported for Home Fibre customers all along. Now the question is whether the company will eventually extend the same flexibility to its growing base of 5G Home subscribers.

Because if your internet router is sitting idle while you’re away, continuing to pay for a service you aren’t using doesn’t feel particularly smart, especially when another part of Safaricom’s own home internet business already offers a better alternative.