Nairobi — The verdict is out: Safaricom has the best coverage but lowest quality network, while Zain has the best overall performance on the key performance indicators set out by the Communication Commission of Kenya.

This is according to an audit report on the quality of voice service in Nairobi GSM networks conducted in October 2009 by Finland based telecommunications consultants, Omnitele, commissioned by local ICT firm, Musimba Investments.

"From the end-users perspective, the low quality can be observed as problems with bad quality of voice and call disconnects during conversations and long call set up times," states the report referring to the Safaricom network.

While rating the four mobile telephony companies, the report shows Zain meets seven out of nine CCK requirements, while Safaricom meets only four of them. Orange fails to meet two of the requirements and newest entrant YU fails on three.

The markers gazzetted on the Kenya Communications Act 1998, are the call completion rate, dropped call rate, call set up success rate, call success rate, speech quality, handover success rate, call set up time, blocked calls and failed calls rate.

The report indicates that the poorest speech quality is on Safaricom network at 87 per cent, falling behind Zain at 94.9 per cent and Yu at 93 per cent.

All three were, however, short of the CCK requirement to have above 95 per cent on speech clarity, only Orange met the requirements with 97.1 per cent speech quality.

"All networks need some attention, especially Safaricom, which needs immediate planning and optimisation to offer satisfactory customer experience, due to the large size and number of subscriber traffic," said Mr Patrick Musimba, CEO, Musimba Investments when launching the report.

Mobile phone users have also been waiting for their calls to be connected for longer periods of time than they should, as none of the networks met the call set up time.

Although the stipulated time is 4 seconds, the report shows that Safaricom calls were delayed for an average 5.206 seconds, YU at 4.201 seconds, Zain at 4.39 seconds and Orange at 4.075 seconds.

Orange was reported to have the worst handover rate performance compared to other networks at 97.8 per cent, which is below CCK's indicated standard of 99.5 per cent.

All the networks performed satisfactorily on the call completion rate, call set up success rates and call success rate.

Mr Musimba said the audit was focused on the consumers' service view rather than the technical part, saying the customers should not be punished for being in a highly subscribed network, as it is the operators' role to plan for how much their infrastructure can accommodate.

When reached for a comment the listed telecoms operator ,Safaricom said had not received a copy of the report as they would have to review it first.