Joseph Bonyo
16 September 2009
Nairobi — Safaricom has launched a tariff that is expected to renew price wars common in the industry.
The tariff allows its subscribers to a discounts based on time of calling and location and is expected to send other players back to the drawing board.
"This great invention will give our prepay customers real value for money through exciting discounts in these tough economic times when everyone is looking for authentic bargains," said Michael Joseph, Safaricom Chief Executive Officer at a press briefing on Wednesday.
Branded Supa Ongea, the tariff, the firm noted is based on a technology called Dynamic Discounting Service (DDS). The technology lets operators discount call rates based on traffic in a particular cell, introducing a completely new way to price telecom services.
Operator benefits include reduced churn and network congestion, and increased total revenues from existing network infrastructure investments. According to data from the Communications Commission of Kenya it is estimated that close to 18 million people subscribe to mobile phone services.
However Safaricom controls a large portion of this with about 14 million of the subscribers. Zain, Orange Telkom and Yu are the other networks licensed to provide services in Kenya.
While within network calls in Kenya has continued to drop from time to time, cross network calls are still considered expensive. As a result, the battle for subscribers has always been fronted by promotions and value addition service by network operators.
"This is a permanent tariff and not a promotion," Mr Joseph told journalists at the launch.
The new tariff allows subscribers pay amounts ranging from as low as 80 Cents to Sh8 according to their location and the timing of their calls, based on a per second billing.
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Thank u safaricom. I have switched to the supa ongea tariff and has given me value for my money. May you continue with more innovations geared towards customer satisfaction.
Muthoni Nyamu Mombasa