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Safaricom, the leading mobile service provider in the region wanted to have an online interactive
session with stakeholders. The objective of the session was to provoke and surface consumer,
regulatory and policy concerns around its services.
Additionally, the session was expected to provide an interactive platform for exchange of ideas
and building solutions and consensus around the issues raised.
The Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTAnet) a multi-stakeholder platform for people and institutions
interested and involved in ICT policy and regulation was selected to lead and moderate the online
discussions.
The online discussions were framed under five thematic areas scheduled to take place over five
days. These included, Consumer, Competition, Innovation, Infrastructure & Universal Access and
finally Technology & Elections issues.
Many pertinent issues were raised that touched on affordability, quality of services, market
dominance, infrastructure sharing and Internet shutdowns in view of the elections.
Safaricom was able to adequately respond to each and every issue raised, giving participants
an operators perspective of issues often raised from only one perspective – the subscriber’s
perspective.
The intersection of consumer and operator’s views enabled by the KICTAnet online platform
facilitated a generation of new ideas, suggestions and alternative approaches to tackling the issues.
At a high policy and regulatory level, it was clear that the lack of a Data Protection Act could be the reason
why subscriber data gets into wrong hands and subsequently abused without prohibitive penalties.
Additionally, the question of market dominance and what to do about remained a contested issue,
with advocates for strong or weak regulatory interventions having ramifications that need further
analysis.
The summary of the issues and their suggested solutions are contained in subsequent pages and
we believe they form a comprehensive list of what needs to be done from a multi-stakeholder
perspective