[kictanet] INNOVATION PROCESS: Safaricom may face sanctions over network outage

Wed Apr 26 02:38:06 EAT 2017

Blessed  Wednesday!
Firstly, one of the reasons I "enjoy" this community is that "it is detached from the rest of us Kenyans who live day by day". By adopting that we receive updates via twitter, please remember that the service provider would high chance be speaking to "cliques" only and others privileged to access free or cheap, accessible, high quality internet (options). I am reminded that "if they cannot afford bread, let them buy cake".
Yes, this situation has raised two elements that are not a service providers obligation; the need for accountability to consumer education by the regulating bodies (NOT (just) by the service providers) and consumer apathy (that consumers have a responsibility too).
My next statement is aware that we may never really know the real reason for the said outage, whether for company privacy or for PR reasons.
Secondly, whilst interpreting the implications of the said outage, I am confounded by the place of the INNOVATION PROCESS which runs from ideation, testing and within it testing newer and newer versions. This in turn also brings in FAILURE and at times MASSIVE FAILURES when already in the market with sizeable share or delivering crucial services to the whole population or segments of it as part of the innovation process.
What concerns me even more is that this may breed a paralysis to local innovation by generating fear, enhanced regulation and sanctions which deter local innovators.In turn, over opening up to foreign players perhaps tested or well cushioned financially, infrastructure-wise by their nations which have interests in this country or region.

Have a blessed day.
Regards/Wangari
 ---
Pray God Bless. 2013Wangari circa - "Being of the Light, We are Restored Through Faith in Mind, Body and Spirit; We Manifest The Kingdom of God on Earth".

    On Wednesday, 26 April 2017, 0:02, Rosemary Koech-Kimwatu via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

 The Competition Act read together with KICA would allow for an entity with Significant Market Power to operate without being declared dominant, even though the maths points to dominance.The reality is in as much as there should be equality it is justified for some to be more equal than others! Regards,Rosemary Koech-Kimwatu On Apr 25, 2017 11:08 PM, "Rosemary Koech-Kimwatu" <chemukoechk at gmail.com> wrote:

@NgigiThere are instances legally allowed when obtaining a benefit for the public which outweighs the lessening of competition that would result from a certain practice.Which can losely be  translated  that as long as the public good has greater weight than a scenario of reduced competition in a market then the regulators may overlook the ill effects of dominance.This was contemplated in the Kenya Information and Communications (Fair Competition and Equality of Treatment ) Regulations,  2010 which created exemptions from the regulations  in section 14(c) for a licencee entrusted with the operation of essential communications services e.g national security insofar as the application of the regulations would obstruct the performance of the tasks assigned to the licencee.So in as much as everyone is complaining about a dominant position there are some perks that come with hadling critical infrastructure that must be granted to the licencee handling the said infrastructure for normalcy to be maintained. Things cannot always be fair, especially if it is in public interest as the current ecosystem stands. All that needs to be maintained are  the  NRRD guidelines which I guess must have been flouted during yesterday's mishap.Regards,Rosemary Koech-Kimwatu
Advocate-Fintech and ICT PolicyOn Apr 25, 2017 9:17 PM, "Ngigi Waithaka via kictanet" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke > wrote:

Ali,
I refer you to @Walu's very good example of dominance. It is *NOT* about the Numbers, but *share* of the market.
Google has been dominant in search for a long time, and they have been charged variously for *abuse* of that dominance, in both search + android.
Dominance of Safaricom in the local market, unless you wear very 'green' tinted lenses is an obvious issue! So called competitors are only there for the show... (Reminds me when Microsoft used to pay competitors to keep them afloat so as to have a semblance of 'competition'.)
Now, the big issue is that Safaricom rans a very large part of our country's 'core' infrastructure and it would be *very irresponsible* of the regulators to sit back, looking at the scraps of 'competition' as a healthy industry and hope against hope that nothing evil would befall Safaricom.
Even Safaricom themselves have a policy of buying their core equipment from at least *TWO* separate vendors , regardless of how good a deal one vendor could give them in total. They don''t leave it to the market to decide!
Its called *RISK MANAGEMENT*
So, if they can do that for their own equipment, it is only prudent that we as a country also have proper risk management in our core services. It is *NOT* a question of splitting the firm, but ensuring, by whatever means necessary, that we have at least 3 credible options.
Rgds

On Tue, Apr 25, 2017 at 8:55 PM, Ali Hussein via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke > wrote:

     Sidney
So let's take the Facebook, Google and Amazon conversation one step further.
1. Facebook. 1 billion users and counting. There are several countries looking at Facebook for certain violations. I have not heard one of them talking about splitting the company. Ditto with Google, Apple and Microsoft. The bigger you get the bigger the target you become. It's a risk entrepreneurs must take.
2. Google. Dominant in search. However search alone without social has stopped being relevant. From a domination position in search to almost being irrelevant without social in a span of less than 5 years. Android is another story. 85% global market share. However, to an extent it's 'open source' hence why Amazon's version of Android is almost unrecognizable. 
https://www.howtogeek.com/2329 73/amazons-fire-os-vs.-googles -android-whats-the-difference/
So even here the choice of declaring Android Dominant isn't an open and shut case.
3. Amazon Web Services. Even though it is the 800 Pound Gorilla of Cloud Services it is far from dominant. Here's how it stakes up against the other big players.
 https://www.channele2e.com/20 16/02/04/cloud-market-share-20 16-aws-microsoft-ibm-google/
My point is that the whole Tech space is so fluid and moving that using age old dominance and monopoly conversations simply don't cut it anymore.. 
 Ali Hussein
+254 0713 601113 

Twitter: @AliHKassim
Skype: abu-jomo
LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alih kassim

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit." ~ Aristotle

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From: Sidney Ochieng via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke >
Sent: Tuesday, April 25, 2017 8:29 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Safaricom may face sanctions over network outage
To: <ali at hussein.me.ke>
Cc: Sidney Ochieng <sidney.ochieng at gmail.com>

Ali, Your argument is simplistic and not based on reality. Monopolies exist still. Think of Facebook, Amazon and Google which are practically monopolies in their core markets. Just because these monopolies are due to self re-enforcing factors does change what they are 

Sent on the move, kindly excuse any typos. 

Sidney 
On 25 Apr 2017 5:51 p.m., "Admin CampusCiti via kictanet" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke > wrote:

@Ngigi 
We have ourselves to blame. Or competitors for being 'weak' 
I'm simply not for the idea of 'rectifying' so called 'Market Failure' with the heavy hand of regulation. 
Dominance/Monopolies are a thing of the past. It maybe simplifying an issue but let's face it. Even with Mpesa being so dominant 90+% of our transactions in this country are still cash based. So where's the Dominance? :-)

Ali HusseinHussein & Associates+254 0713 601113 / 0770906375
Twitter: @AliHKassimSkype: abu-jomoLinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.c om/in/alihkassimBlog: www.alyhussein.com

"Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought".  ~ Albert Szent-Györgyi
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On 25 Apr 2017, at 5:39 PM, Ngigi Waithaka <ngigi at at.co.ke> wrote:

@Ali,
My concern is between now and when the so called 'market' takes care of this issue.
As we have seen yesterday, We are one hack away from the entire country being taken down almost completely by the failure of a single firm.
Twendeleeni vivyo hivyo!
On 25 Apr 2017 5:24 p.m., "Admin CampusCiti" <info at campusciti.com> wrote:

@Ngigi
I'm with Tom on this one. I actually don't see how the Dominance conversation has crept  into this discussion :-) 
We have a choice. 
For Mpesa 1. Airtel Money.2. PesaLink3. MULA -  I actually now use Mula for all my bill payments. It's just super useful. Even the Safaricom App that's been launched doesn't hold a candle to Mula. 4. Orange money.
For Connectivity 1. Orange2. Liquid3. Airtel (by the way there are other parts of this country like Kilifi for example that Airtel has a far better network..4. Surf by Facebook 😜5. Zuku6. JTL 
As Kenyans we simply cannot go back to having this Dominance conversation since we are in a free market and there is choice.
Vote with your wallet, like I have. Safaricom will continue to improve or it will become irrelevant. Think Microsoft, Think Compac, Think Kodak , Think Nokia.
C'mon guys..The market will take care of this issue. And guess what? 
YOU ARE THE MARKET (Chukua control wewe mwenyewe!!) 
Don't punish Safaricom for weakness in competitors and your own 'laziness' :-) to choose a different service provider if you are unhappy with current services. 
Ali HusseinHussein & Associates+254 0713 601113 / 0770906375
Twitter: @AliHKassimSkype: abu-jomoLinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.c om/in/alihkassimBlog: www.alyhussein.com

"Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought".  ~ Albert Szent-Györgyi
Sent from my iPad
On 25 Apr 2017, at 10:43 AM, Ngigi Waithaka via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke > wrote:

Ali,
Do you now see the wisdom of declaring Safaricom dominant and at least getting 2-3 other players with a sizeable market share to spread the risk?
When Safcom goes down and it will inevitably will at times, the following happens:1. 80% of the country citizens are without communication2. 80% of the country's citizens are without access to money & banking services.3. 100% of the police security & communication system is offline.
We put all our country's eggs in that one basket... and the basket is bound to drop once in awhile....
On 25 Apr 2017 9:35 a.m., "Admin CampusCiti via kictanet" <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke > wrote:

Listers
This issue continues to have serious ramifications. Yesterday Bob, the CEO, made a very impassioned statement on the downtime. I liked the fact that he said there's no excuse for such a thing to happen and that they are working on restoring full services. 
However, I think Bob's statement simply didn't go far enough. We are seeing a different Safaricom - one that seems attuned to the customer and more open that's why I'm disappointed that Mpesa is still down today morning and we have had nothing from Safaricom. A simple use of SMS to update us on an hourly basis is not too much to ask. 
It's clear that Safaricom is now so embedded in our lives that total openness is not only a must it's a Business Continuity Conversation. 

Ali HusseinHussein & Associates+254 0713 601113 / 0770906375
Twitter: @AliHKassimSkype: abu-jomoLinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.c om/in/alihkassimBlog: www.alyhussein.com

"Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought".  ~ Albert Szent-Györgyi
Sent from my iPad
On 24 Apr 2017, at 11:18 PM, Sidney Ochieng via kictanet <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke > wrote:

Safaricom may face sanctions over network outage 

http://www.businessdailyafrica .com/news/Safaricom-may-face-s anctions-over-network-outage/5 39546-3902518-15d86gnz/index.h tml
That one network has this much power over economy is frightening and must be addressed. Today has proven that it's not enough that Safaricom says they won't misuse their dominance, it's enough that if they fail the country slows to a crawl. 
Sent on the move, kindly excuse any typos. 

Sidney 

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