Safaricom under pressure for conflicting explanations over two-hour internet outage in Kenya

Kenyan telecoms giant Safaricom has come under pressure after it released conflicting statements on a nationwide internet outage on Tuesday. The disruption lasted over two hours and coincided with countrywide protests over the now-withdrawn 2024 Finance Bill. 

Safaricom reported an internet outage on Tuesday night as a result of an issue with one of their subterranean lines. Netblocks, an internet observation platform, refuted this assertion, claiming there was no proof of actual cable damage. Significant East African underwater cable providers, such as TEAMs, SEACOM, and Eassy, also failed to disclose any outages on their cables.

Peter Ndegwa, the CEO of the business, subsequently asserted that the entire telco sector was impacted. All save Airtel Kenya, which stated that its services were sporadic but not entirely unavailable, failed to disclose the outage to other ISPs in the area. Given that underwater cable cuts typically take days or weeks to locate and mend, many were taken aback by how swiftly Safaricom resolved the outage.

Redundancies are frequently incorporated by telecom firms to manage disruptions. Services were restored quickly, which could be explained by Safaricom’s ability to divert traffic via other channels while they identified the primary issue.

Customers and some of Safaricom’s most important creative partners, like as social media influencers, were displeased with the company’s internet disruption.Ombachi Dennis, a former rugby player and chef, was among the ten who severed their connection with the business. Ombachi wrote on X, “Your values do not align with mine, so I won’t be working with you.”

A few clients of Safaricom also began to sell their stock. The share price of the telecom company fell 3.6% today and is currently trading at $0.13.

On X, someone said on social media, “For the first time, Safaricom is in a real panic; there is no traditional arrogance.”

Kenya has over 27 million active monthly mobile data users, therefore the downtime turned into a nightmare for the operator in terms of PR. Peter Ndegwa, the CEO of the company, issued a statement on X expressing his “sincere apologies” for the disruption.

With the exception of delays caused by planned maintenance, natural catastrophes, or unintentional damage, Kenya’s ICT regulator, the Communications Authority (CA), published new guidelines in 2022 mandating user compensation (airtime equivalent) during network outages. It is unlikely that the impacted customers would receive compensation because, according to Safaricom, the outage resulted from unintentional damage.