Kenya's telecommunications regulator has published its annual quality-of-service assessment for the 2024–2025 financial year, revealing a stark divide in network performance between the country's three mobile operators.
The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) evaluated Safaricom, Airtel Kenya and Telkom Kenya across three components: end-to-end drive and walk tests measuring core network performance, a technical network performance score, and a quality of experience survey drawn from customer feedback.
Safaricom emerged as the frontrunner, posting an overall Quality of Service (QoS)score of 89.72%, well above the regulatory compliance threshold of 80%.
Airtel Kenya cleared the bar with 81.14%, while Telkom Kenya recorded just 52.76%, placing it in breach of the regulator's minimum standards.
The performance gap is most pronounced in end-to-end network quality, where Safaricom scored 90.36% against Airtel's 76.47% and Telkom's 47.94%.
On regional coverage, Safaricom met QoS targets in all five of the CA's regional clusters. Airtel met targets in two. Telkom met none.
Both Safaricom and Airtel achieved a perfect score of 100% on the technical network performance component, while Telkom scored 60%.
On customer satisfaction, Safaricom led with 70%, narrowly ahead of Airtel at 68.4% and Telkom at 60%.
The report also flags a four-year downward trend in overall industry performance, attributed to rising data consumption and sustained pressure on network infrastructure, a challenge facing mobile operators across the continent as smartphone penetration deepens and streaming and mobile financial services multiply.
The CA conducts its assessments as part of its consumer protection mandate, and the findings carry regulatory weight: operators falling below the 80% threshold face scrutiny and potential enforcement action.
Telkom Kenya ranked nearly 30 percentage points below the compliance floor and is the most significant compliance failure recorded in the assessment
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