The Communication Authority of Kenya (CA) has implemented a Quality of Service Monitoring System (QSMS) to track and evaluate the quality of telecommunications services.

The issue continues to impact the market and in January 2018, Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom were fined over US$3 million for poor quality of service.

Having adopted the Framework for Assessment of Teleco's Quality of Service in July 2018, the CA has now positioned QSMS to further monitor telcos.

According to a statement issued by the CA, "The new Quality of Service Monitoring system (QSMS) is  based on three key components: network performance, customer experience as well as end-to-end performance that analyses the rate of dropped calls, call connection time and voice or data quality."

Section 23 of the Kenya Communications Act, 1998, mandates the Authority to ensure that the licensed telecommunications operators and service providers offer good quality services.

Telcos are required to submit data of their network performance on an hourly basis, while the CA will file the results of its annual satisfaction survey in the QoS report.

SMS and mobile internet services will also be assessed.

Francis Wangusi, Director General of the CA, added, "Over the years, the Authority has been releasing the quality of service reports of the measurements in line with global best practice. While quality of service improvements have been noticed over the years, none- of the MNOs has met the set threshold of measuring the prescribed parameters."

The new system will be fully implemented over three years.