No, Safaricom Was Not Being Simple, Transparent And Honest, Netizens Accuse Firm Of Dishonesty In The New Home Fiber Plan

On 8th February, Safaricom PLC gave a Customer Notice ‘We are permanently increasing Home Fibre speeds effective 1st March 2021.’ The announcement meant that Home Fibre customers will get about double the bandwidth they have paid for, while Diamond Package customers will get more than double the speed at 250 per cent.

Under the adjusted packages, effective 1st March 2021, customers on the Gold and Diamond Packages will enjoy Secure Net service in their package.

The Bronze package which initially comprised of 5MBs at a monthly fee of Sh2,900 will now offer speeds of up to 8MBs at the same price.

Silver package customers who initially got 10MBs for Sh3,999 per month will now get 20MBs for the same price monthly.

Gold Package holders will get 40 MBs, up from 20MBs for Sh5,999 while Diamond Package customers will now get 100MBs, up from 40MBs for Sh11,999 monthly.

Customer Notice: We are permanently increasing Home Fibre speeds effective 1st March 2021. pic.twitter.com/GRGCD9T9TJ

— Safaricom PLC (@SafaricomPLC) February 8, 2021

This gained positive reviews mostly from customers who’ve been complaining lately about slower Internet speeds.

However, this didn’t take long before the hawk eyes of IT gurus on Twitter unearthed what could be said to contradict Safaricom’s working motto of ‘Simple. Transparent. Honest.’

“Safaricom doubled internet speeds to hide that their fibre internet is now LIMITED!” One user Mavavya tweeted in the opening of a lengthy thread that broke down the dynamics. “Safaricom coming through with the nonsense.” Opined Eric Mugendi on the new home fiber plan.

Safaricom doubled internet speeds to hide that their fibre internet is now LIMITED!!!

Scammers.

— mavavya (@dexxe) February 14, 2021

While introducing the ‘Fair Usage Policy’ targeting many people who’re now working from home due to the COVID-19 challenges, Safaricom is not only doubling the speeds but doing away with the traditional UNLIMITED home fiber packages option that made the product popular in the first place.

Safaricom currently is the dominating fiber internet provider, its fibre coverage grew by 34.3% in 2020 to a cumulative 9000 km.

Under the reviewed packages prices, customers will pay as below.

So what’s the ‘Fair Usage Policy’ being introduced by Safaricom? “Ideally, ‘Fair Usage’ is an approach a company takes to ensure every customer gets to share a resource equally without others missing out. We’ve seen “fair usage policies” with limited resources like 4G connections where after a certain amount of data usage, your speeds are reduced to a certain level. That reduction in speed is an artificial restriction created by the company to limit a customer from accessing certain internet speeds, so that they do not strain the network and thereby hinder others from accessing the resource.” As defined by tech-ish.com.

The major issue is about putting cap on data despite the attractive bundles. “This is extremely disappointing. Take away the double speeds. Return to the original speeds but DO NOT introduce data caps. That is BS.” One user commented.

But even this, there’s an explanation as one user replied, “The previous arrangement was tied to a “contention ratio of 4:1”. That means you share your connection with 3 other people. So, when all of you are online, speeds drop. But with FUP limits you get to enjoy your allocation at full speed with no contention ratio limits.”

He continued, “Using the example of 10mbps @3,999, under the contention ratio tier (4:1), you’re only guaranteed 2.5mbps throughout the month and not as you assume. Under the new FUP terms, you’re guaranteed 20mbps always for as long as you stay within the 1TB limit. Should you exhaust it, you get guaranteed 3mbps speeds, which is still much better than the contention ratio tier of 2.5mbps.”

However, the new policy has attracted different reactions from users.

Safaricom just handed Zuku a win hivyo tu. Because that fair usage nonsense is nonsense. And the attempt to spin it as "We saw people's usage and crafted a policy around it" is even more nonsensical nonsense.

— Marcus Olang' (@marcusolang) February 14, 2021

Safaricom without Bob = no thoughts of solutions. The guy in charge thinks like Uhuru – when things go wrong, his first thoughts are restrictions and lectures (see the part on downtimes). Completely unimaginative and they'll self destruct like this. https://t.co/zK9TRv8vn4

— Toph Beifong, First of Her Name ??? (@W_Asherah) February 14, 2021

Problem with Safaricom short changing Fiber users is there won't be a proper online outcry because the senior influencers are in their pockets.
Ladies and gentlemen that's how politicians are being bought to support BBI, it's the same hypocrisy just to different causes.

— .. (@UstadhKimongo) February 14, 2021

Safaricom will have to drop their fair use policy on Safaricom Home Fibre or they'll go down the drains like Zuku.

— Gitz (@Gitz__) February 14, 2021

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There's someone at an agency drafting an influencer crisis management brief right now for Safaricom which involves ignoring everything we are bringing up. They will send it out to the influencers via WhatsApp by evening then the hashtags will start ?

— MT (@MarigaThoithi) February 14, 2021

The current Safaricom really thinks we owe them something. It's why they came up with garbage like Twende Tukiuke. We owe them our time, our thoughts – we should be cleverer and think through things for them. It's becoming a horrid company.

— Toph Beifong, First of Her Name ??? (@W_Asherah) February 14, 2021

Safaricom can never just give you something nice for free, no way, an offer just like that, never… There is always a catch, that eventually benefits them and inconveniences customers. Very conniving people.

— Dextrous. (@mainneli_) February 14, 2021

Safaricom appears to have replied to the concerns about of many on their new policy suggesting that the new data caps are well within the average user’s data consumption.

Far from the truth. The average user hits 350 GB in a month unless you are in the business of reselling, we are all good.^FO

— Safaricom Care (@Safaricom_Care) February 14, 2021

This reply too has attracted harsh reactions from users who feel it is underwhelming.

This is representative of Safaricom communications in general.

Simple. Transparent. Honest (condescending) #TwendeTukiuke https://t.co/Hs5XJuAcQe

— MT (@MarigaThoithi) February 14, 2021

Safaricom 4g LTE was 3mbps initially unlimited, at 4k, they then introduced 100GB limit. 2 days of Netflix and the whole data was gone. 4k. Like that.

Safaricom are conmen. Stealing is what they know.

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Hama if you get the chance. https://t.co/WU8q4nEHd9

— Rodgers Abidha. MD. (@Rodgers_Abidha) February 14, 2021

So, in your wisdom and logic, if you pay 6k or 12k, you get the same limit as someone paying 4k and will be throttled down to the same speed as them so you people can prevent theft? Never mind that people pay higher amounts to cater for their heavier consumption?! https://t.co/3vA8r9619L

— Toph Beifong, First of Her Name ??? (@W_Asherah) February 14, 2021

LMAO you really just told everyone Fuck you https://t.co/zog0h9fOYQ

— TerriAnn Kibiriti (@terrikibiriti) February 14, 2021

There are those who also agree with Safaricom that the data bundles are well within the satisfaction range of an average user.

Unless you're a person whose business involves lots of data, like, oh, say you're an educator or a learner or a photographer or a videographer… You lot can go fish.

Other than that, we are all good! https://t.co/11NUW48i89

— Marcus Olang' (@marcusolang) February 14, 2021

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Obv, this is a topic of personal preferences that can go on and continues to be online. What you need to know is that the end of an holiday is here with Safaricom making changes in installations.

If 90 % of fibre home users cant hit the LIMIT ,why CAP the 10% ? . (Why package using DATA from the 10% market) , Ain't your market the 90% ? Then package as per market Consumption. SIMPLE !

— Sally (@Salomelugard) February 15, 2021

Safaricom: Almost 90 percent of Home Fibre customers do not hit the limits.

Me: If 90 per cent of customers do not hit the data cap Limits, why Limit?

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— Cyprian, Is Nyakundi (@CisNyakundi) February 15, 2021

According to the firm’s directives, effective 1st March, things will change further on home fiber in summary:

1. There will be a fee of Kshs. 3,000.00 for a new connection. If you do not carry your router when relocating, you will be charged Kshs. 6,500 as a replacement fee for the router. This is however subject to change based on router models and technology.(Initially, signing up was free including installation).
2. Customers will be allocated internet speeds with a 1:4 contention ratio. This means that in instances of heavy traffic causing congestion on the network, applicable speeds may be reduced to up to 25% of the advertised speed for the package.
3. The Safaricom Home Fibre plans are subject to a Fair Usage Policy with usage limits and throttle speeds as indicated in the table above. Upon reaching the Fair Usage limit for the package, the speeds will be throttled to 1Mbps for Bronze plans and 3Mbps for Silver, Gold and Diamond plans for the remainder of the validity period of the subscription.
4. The fair usage limit is a consumption limit assigned for each usage cycle and not a volume resource or bundle allocation hence it will not be possible to roll over or extend the validity of the fair usage limit beyond the package validity cycle. (You don’t deplete the data, it’s forfeited).