Next week, Kenya is expected to launch Mobile Number Portability (MNP), however analysts are concerned that the service may not be as effective as it should be and could leave customers frustrated.
Safaricom said in a statement on Thursday that the testing on the new project has not been to the standards they had expected ahead of the April 1 deadline.
It added that the company and Essar Telecom’s Yu did not feel confident in the launch, echoing earlier statements by competitor Telkom Kenya CEO Mickael Ghossein, who had said in public that the two operators were “not ready for MNP.”
Safaricom’s CEO Bob Collymore did attempt to curtail speculation, saying the operator had spent $10 million on the platform and that the two operators should have had three months to test the product instead of the two weeks established by the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK).
“The customer experience is going to be very poor and customers need to understand that because there has not been enough time to test the platform,” Collymore told reporters on Thursday.
The original deadline had been the end of last year, but operators postponed the launch because they felt the MNP was not logistically ready for public use.
By Staff
