[kictanet] "Talk to Safaricom" Way Forward

[Mutemi wa Kiama]

Thank you so much Grave, Walu, Steve and the listers for this opportunity
to engage. Trend setting!

Edwin Kiama

Thoughts become things... choose the good ones!




*-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**Social
Justice Entrepreneur, Human Rights Defender, *
*#DevolutionIsRevolution Champion*

*The Wanjiku Agenda Kenya Foundation (WAKenya)*Ordinary, fearless Kenyans.
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"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change
the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." *~Margaret Mead*

On Mon, Feb 27, 2017 at 11:31 AM, Grace Githaiga via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> 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)
> <http://www.itu.int/en/ITU-D/Statistics/Pages/publications/mis2016.aspx>.
> 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 <enry 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.
>
>
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