This archive report was first published on 24 November 2019.
Safaricom, Kenya's leading telecommunications company, faced a major outage on Saturday evening, November 23, 2019, leaving its customers without data and voice services.
According to a statement posted on its Twitter handle, the company successfully restored all services following intermittent network challenges.
"We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused and thank you for your patience," the company said.
The outage resulted in backlash from subscribers who took to social media to express their dissatisfaction.
Service outages are increasingly putting telcos at risk of penalties from the Communication Authority of Kenya (CA), which can fine companies up to 0.2 per cent of their annual gross turnover.
CA has warned that the fine could be as low as Sh500,000 if it is established that the downtime was caused by omission on the part of the telco.
Notably, Airtel Kenya faced a similar situation last month, with a 27-hour downtime affecting its data, calling, and texting services.
