[kictanet] "Talk to Safaricom" Way Forward

Mon Feb 27 11:31:25 EAT 2017

    Thank you so much Steve for taking time to engage with the
community. You shared alot of information and I am sure the community
will feel free to engage with Safaricom going forward.

We applaud all listers who kept the debate alive and asked questions
that elicited information that has not been in the public domain.

The plan now is that Walu will compile the responses in a report form,
but provide an executive summary. The executive summary will form part
of the presentation during the cocktail and listers will be free to
ask questions that they deem not satisfactory or those that need
further clarification. Walu will complete this task in another two
weeks. So we are talking of March 10. 

The cocktail will be held at a date to be announced in due course. So
keep it here!

Once again, thank you all who participated. This engagement has been
valuable. 

Best regards

Githaiga, Grace

On Friday, 24-02-2017 at 13:42 Stephen Chege wrote:

 Dear all

 Below are the responses to the Supplementary Questions that have been
asked following earlier responses. Again, please feel free to ask
follow-ups. 

 As mentioned, it has been great engaging with you all. Walu and Grace
over to you now for the next steps.

 regards

 Steve

Machuhi.

Good and well thought through responses except bundles expiry... not
convincing. If bundles must expire, why not 'convert' them into
airtime - you'd still have your revenue assured. Or create an Expired
Bundles' Foundation and donate them to a cause of victim's choice. It
does feel like theft-- 

Machuhi, thanks for your suggestion. However as I mentioned before,
Safaricom is among the few operators that allows customers to
“rollover” the expired resources only requiring you to top up your
line to reactivate them.

Walu

@Steve, Still absorbing some of your responses. On affordability of
data you wrote

_Over the last 7 years, the price of data on our network has dropped
by 80% for example, in 2010, one GB was Sh2,500 versus the current
Sh500. Over the last year, we further reduced the price of data on our
network by 37%. We keep on reviewing customer needs and react
accordingly where we can. Data in Kenya is relatively more affordable
than say South Africa (where 1GB is Sh582), US (where 1GB is Sh1,814)
and in the UK (1Gb is Sh1,944)._

It seems ITU has a different way of looking at affordability. They
look at the monthly cost of entry level mobile data (500MB) as a
percentage of the country's Gross National Income.  

So whereas the cost in real terms for data in Kenya maybe equal to or
less than what is charged in SA, UK or USA, the Kenyan citizen bears a
bigger burden in accessing internet - given our lower income levels.
Indeed from the Measuring Info Society 2016 report (pg136) [1]. ITU
place the mobile data affordability for Kenya at 136 out the 178
global economies surveyed. What’s your take on this? 

Interesting and valid perspective Walu. However it is also
important to take into account the level of development and enabling
environment (or lack thereof) of where the network is located. In
Kenya, while you can enjoy the same 4G experience as say someone in
say in New York, the cost of rolling out services here is
prohibitively high as it is not a build-on on existing infrastructure
but actual greenfield rollout. The cost of putting up BTS, wayleaves
for backhaul fibre, microwave fees, high initial licence fees,
spectrum usage fees all of which are paid to the Communications
Authority, international access links, security e.t.c  I think our
prices are competitive when compared to more mature markets that have
more embedded infrastructure and which can leverage on pre-existing
efficiencies.

@Steve: As you prepare to avail feedback on competition questions,
kindly address this observation: The management of Airtel has been
quoted as attributing their diminished fortunes to the acts/omissions
of the regulator and Safaricom: 

-Has the regulator by any chance shown more affection towards
Safaricom than other players?

Walu, I think every operator can gripe about what the regulator has
done to them or not done for them. I could state the things which we
think our regulator has not done to facilitate further growth by
Safaricom, but that is not how we operate. I will also not speculate
about what the other companies may have said. 

However I will say that if it is the expectation of any operator that
the regulator represents their best chance to make a profit in any
market then such an operator is seeking to use regulatory support to
achieve the success that it should seek from the market. I firmly
believe that it is not the role of any regulator to ensure that any
operator makes a profit – that is the role of the market. The
regulator’s role is to ensure that all players in the market have an
equal opportunity to succeed and the necessary incentives to do so.
The market will then decide which operator does and which one does
not. Market entry and exit is a feature of competitive markets. 

What word of encouragement do you have for your industry brothers who
would like to be Safaricom at adulthood? Advice “roho safi" 

Kamotho, we certainly do not see ourselves that way. But one insight
that drives our company is the knowledge that Kenya is not a market
that readily accepts ‘one size fits all’ solutions – to
make it here, you must consistently focus on the customer and provide
solutions that meet the unique needs of this market. The other one is
investment. If you invest in your network you are likely to grow and
this will fuel further investment and more growth. 

Still wondering if there will ever be an M-PESA app-Sidney Ochieng

As mentioned in my earlier response, we are in the advanced stages
of trialing an M-PESA App which will be part of the Safaricom App we
have already released.

Mwendwa Kivuva

Thanks you Steve for bringing this up. Under which law will CA
be implementing a monitoring system on Operators' platforms? As far
as my little legal knowledge stretches, any intent to access citizen's
private data can only be accompanied by a court order (court of
competent jurisdiction they say), and the access cannot be in
perpetuity. It can only be for a specific finite task, mostly
investigation. I hope CA can also respond to this. 

Mwendwa, in all fairness I would direct that question to the
Communications Authority. I would further add that what I stated
earlier was that there should be more robust public debate on the
issue. In the current dispensation it is not enough to ‘engage’
the operators alone but the people whose confidential information is
affected as well.

George Sidney Ralak

I've been on postpaid since 2013, all that time, I have been receiving
100 Mbs per month, we are now in 2017, is there a way Safaricom can
add the amount of bundles it gives to its postpaid customers? 100 Mbs
cannot even last one day and to make it worse it, there is no way one
can sambaza bundles to a postpaid number. Since I rarely exhaust the
voice bundles given to me, maybe there should be a plan to choose
which bundles to receive more than the other. Lastly, to those unused
voice bundles at the end of every month, instead of just wiping them
out, and you don’t carry them forward like you used to anymore, why
don't you convert them to Bonga points instead.- 

There are a number of PostPay plans that are designed to satisfy the
various needs of our customers. Our PostPay Advantage team will reach
out to you on this query. Going forward, we are preparing an exciting
new proposition that will allow you to decide for yourself what you
want to do with resources you have purchase from us.

Henry at article19.org

I am interested in knowing if Safaricom will be publishing any
transparency report soon? Secondly, how many government requests for
user data has safaricom received in the last five years as
disaggregated by year and how many of the requests were acted on
positively? 

Henry, I have touched on this question before but to be clear, we do
not get requests from government. Where we do get requests, it is
usually in criminal investigations and court proceedings where
typically the information sought is call data records.

I just have one question for Safcom with respect to Competition.  Are
they willing to:

a) Be split into several independent units? As in make the Mobile
money business (MPESA) a separate and autonomous unit from their Voice
and Data side of business? 

b)  Open up MPESA service such that if I vuka (migrate) to
competition e.g Airtel, I do not lose the MPESA facility?

Obviously this would be an affront to their 'stronghold' but sometimes
it may spice up the market a bit.  This may be necessary considering
that their market share lead has not changed much over the last
10years. Which may point to a market failure or maybe they are just
clever than everyone else- Walu.

Walu, we currently operate in the way we do because, at this point in
time, this is how we believe we can best serve customers. Whether or
not we operate in a different model should be entirely up to us and
based on our own timelines and aspirations. To cite an innovation as
the reason why a company should be split up is inimical to the stated
objective of any policy or regulatory framework. Secondly, innovations
in the technology space move rapidly and what may be considered a
standard or accepted way of doing things can be easily disrupted and
replaced by the next innovation. Every day we read about new ways of
sending money, many of which are network and indeed geography
agnostic. Given that, is this talk about forcibly splitting M-PESA
from Safaricom called for? What signal does this send to innovators
and investors? What is the legality of such a call? Should this be the
main focus of regulators/policy makers? Does this help the customer in
any way?

We cannot develop by cutting our companies into small business units.
Our goal as a country should be to grow the SME to big corporations
that can compete regionally and globally. Safaricom remains a small
player compared to other operators who have continental outlook- MTN,
Etisalat. In terms of M-PESA, we think there is enough for everyone.
At the present 90 per cent of all payment in Kenya are still done in
cash. This is what we need to focus on and we believe, as the Kenya
Bankers Association has shown, it can be done through innovation. 

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Co-Convenor
Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet)
Twitter:@ggithaiga
Tel: 254722701495
Skype: gracegithaiga
Alternate email: ggithaiga at hotmail.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gracegithaiga
www.kictanet.or.ke

"Change only happens when ordinary people get involved, get engaged
and come together to demand it. I am asking you to believe. Not in my
ability to bring about change – but in yours"---Barrack Obama.

Links:
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[1]
http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/mis2016.aspx

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