Yawe,
I agree with you that Safaricom has not fully thought out the
operational management of this product. I applied and promptly paid for the
service as a redundant link at my office building on Friday last week and was
promised that it would be installed by Monday this week. The engineers finally
came on Tuesday but they had no official documentation or identification and
were denied access to the building conduits and rooftop by the management until
they had the right documentation. When they finally returned on Thursday with a
letter; they were again sent away as the management of the building required
them to have a “license” and pay to an annual rent to setup their equipment on
the rooftop at a cost of KES. 120,000 – KES 180,000.
I understand that this product is mainly targeted at residential
users but since I was visited by Safaricom staff before making payment I expect
that they had worked out the installation and configuration part.
Regards,
Harry Karanja n Director n SoftLaw Limited n Genius Executive Centre n 15th Floor View Park Towers n Utalii Lane n Nairobi CBD n Tel: +254 20 342 225
From:
kictanet-bounces+kairo=softlaw.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke
[mailto:kictanet-bounces+kairo=softlaw.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf
Of robert yawe
Sent: Friday, October 08, 2010 8:46 AM
To: kairo@softlaw.co.ke
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: [kictanet] Safaricom Wimax service
Hi,
I was most exited about getting the Safaricom Wimax service,
they had teething problems with the role out which I suspect was because they
did not anticipate the level of demand.
The service finally worked, which took about a week from the
time I applied for the service, but only for about 3 days then the problems
started.
What is most annoying is that the customer service
number is not toll free and cannot be reached through the normal 100 or 200
numbers which to me suggests that Safaricom has not fully integrated the new
baby into the rest of the organisation. The customer service number is
also only manned during normal working hours which is unacceptable when you are
dealing with residential users who need the service outside this hours.
The fixed wireless business is also very different from
mobile wireless which is Safaricoms forte, with fixed wireless the
client cannot take the equipment to a customer service centre which would
therefore mean the need for more personnel, vehicles and higher chances of
providing mediocre services. This will be a good experience for
Safaricom in dealing with a different type of client especially now that they
are offering B2B solutions such as application hosting and collocation
services. I am sure that after this experience they will never talk ill
of Telkom and their landline service.
When the initial team came to do the installation it was
clear that they where not Safaricom employees but an outsourced provider who
where not up to scratch on dealing with residential users. They had
dropped the antennae cable down the side of the house from the roof and then
through the window.
I had them remove the shoddy installation and make sure they
passed the cable through the provided conduits which meant that a single team
outing turned into a 3 day affair, at the fixed cost I am sure they are being
paid per installation I am not surprised that they have not been able
to come and fix my link which has been down since Monday this week.
Regards
Sent from my laptop in the office since my Safaricom
Nyumbani service is inoperative
Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
Kenya
Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696