External consultants are set to assess mobile networks’ quality of service (QoS) in Kenya in future, says the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK).

The move is aimed at avoiding confrontations that have emerged from test reports.

This month the CCK unveiled a quality of service report card that indicated that all mobile operators failed to meet a pass score of 80%.

As a result, Safaricom -- which is Kenya’s largest mobile operator -- has been up in arms over its CCK QoS score of 50%. Safaricom says independent quality assessments have given its network a score of over 80%.

However, mobile operators and the CCK have agreed on using consultants for QoS tests.

Moreover, the CCK admitted that limited human capacity has impeded its capability to run continuous assessments of voice quality on the country’s networks.

"Currently we are forced to do a single quality of service assessment report as we have limited manpower, hence we want to hire consultants to help us carry the assessment key performance indicators," CCK director general Francis Wangusi said at a briefing.

In a meeting held in Nairobi yesterday, CCK and the mobile operators also agreed to review the QoS parameters, with the outsourced team expected to bring about efficiency and also address the operators’ concerns.

“We have also agreed with mobile network operators to discuss the methodology and parameters for measurement of voice quality assessment with the commission to address future measurements in view of the changing dynamics in the sector,” Wangusi added.

The current assessment methodology was adopted in 2008/2009.

Mobile operators have alleged that the methodology used by CCK is outdated.

The CCK has nevertheless maintained that operators who fail to meet quality of standards in the future will have to pay heftier fines, with the regulator setting the new fine at 0.2% of their annual revenues, as opposed to the current fine of Ksh500,000.