I have already replied to Edith directly. There was a problem on Sunday (after cutover to our new IN) where some subscribers sms's were not delivered. This was fixed on Sunday (it also applied to me). If you have this problem, suggest you switch your phone off for 2 minutes and try again. If you still have this problem let me know. Its amazing how quickly you assume the worst of us! Michael CEO Safaricom Limited -----Original Message----- From: kictanet-bounces+mjoseph=safaricom.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+mjoseph=safaricom.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Alex Gakuru Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 3:45 PM To: Michael Joseph Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] SMS Service by the 2 Operators And could they have quietly termitted cheaper GPRS services in favour of EDGE (on Blackberry at 2,000/= pm)? --- Edith Adera <eadera@idrc.or.ke> wrote:

Mobile Operators,

Is there any particular reason why about 70-80% of sms are not being delivered in the last 1 month or so?

...

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________________________________________________________________________ ____________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: mjoseph@safaricom.co.ke Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/mjoseph%40safaricom .co.ke The information in this email and any attachments is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for the use of the named addressee. Emails are susceptible to alteration and their integrity cannot be guaranteed. Safaricom Limited does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this email if the same is found to have been altered or manipulated. The contents and opinions expressed in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Safaricom Limited. Safaricom Limited disclaims any liability to the fullest extent permissible by law for any consequences that may arise from the contents of this email including but not limited to personal opinions, malicious and/or defamatory information and data/codes that may compromise or damage the integrity of the recipient's information technology systems. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender and immediately delete this email from your system.

I understand your frustrations. But being a technical person (I assume) you know that things go wrong sometimes. Even my desktop which is not tampered with day to day sometimes just does not work for some reason. The cutting over to the new IN was a massive and complex undertaking (not done many times for sure) and although we have had some problems - most notably with SMS deliveries - it was done, by our standards, quite smoothly. Can you imagine transferring over 12 million customer records, profiles and balances in 4 hours! The problem with sms was if you were out of coverage or had your phone off for some time the SMSC "lost" you. we hope we have solved the problems now. Regards, Michael CEO Safaricom Limited ________________________________ From: kictanet-bounces+mjoseph=safaricom.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+mjoseph=safaricom.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Odhiambo Washington Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 6:29 PM To: Michael Joseph Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] SMS Service by the 2 Operators On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Michael Joseph <MJoseph@safaricom.co.ke> wrote: I have already replied to Edith directly. There was a problem on Sunday (after cutover to our new IN) where some subscribers sms's were not delivered. This was fixed on Sunday (it also applied to me). If you have this problem, suggest you switch your phone off for 2 minutes and try again. If you still have this problem let me know. Its amazing how quickly you assume the worst of us! Not quickly, Sir:-) It's the expected behaviour when one pays for a service. They don't expect hitches like these. Mine was such that some SMS were getting delivered while some were not. I tried to establish a pattern, whether it was prefix related, but it wasn't, so I decided to call CC (Customer Care), and was told the same: Switch off and on for a few minutes. It was hard to "buy" that as a solution so I just said my prayers and later it just worked. Of course you had put an ad on the papers regarding the maintenance. The only problem with that as was it said you only expected it to affect prepaid customers. I, being an Advantage customer, never expected to be affected, so I believe I (as an individual) am/was entitles to that assumption that you fear:-) It might be the same case with Adera, but I don't know. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!" --from a /. post The information in this email and any attachments is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for the use of the named addressee. Emails are susceptible to alteration and their integrity cannot be guaranteed. Safaricom Limited does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this email if the same is found to have been altered or manipulated. The contents and opinions expressed in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Safaricom Limited. Safaricom Limited disclaims any liability to the fullest extent permissible by law for any consequences that may arise from the contents of this email including but not limited to personal opinions, malicious and/or defamatory information and data/codes that may compromise or damage the integrity of the recipient's information technology systems. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender and immediately delete this email from your system.

Hello all, It appears that the problem is still not fully resolved since I can not send sms to some Telkom Wireless numbers, specifically all with 020-460-xxxx. just gets an error message "sending message failed"

From Celtel all works OK, but not from Safaricom lines, and this happened since the "new IN" system was put.

Could someone throw more light as to the possible bugs that are yet to beset the customer?? Eric I understand your frustrations. But being a technical person (I assume) you know that things go wrong sometimes. Even my desktop which is not tampered with day to day sometimes just does not work for some reason. The cutting over to the new IN was a massive and complex undertaking (not done many times for sure) and although we have had some problems - most notably with SMS deliveries - it was done, by our standards, quite smoothly. Can you imagine transferring over 12 million customer records, profiles and balances in 4 hours! The problem with sms was if you were out of coverage or had your phone off for some time the SMSC "lost" you. we hope we have solved the problems now. Regards, Michael CEO Safaricom Limited ________________________________ From: kictanet-bounces+mjoseph=safaricom.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+mjoseph=safaricom.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Odhiambo Washington Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2008 6:29 PM To: Michael Joseph Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] SMS Service by the 2 Operators On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Michael Joseph <MJoseph@safaricom.co.ke> wrote: I have already replied to Edith directly. There was a problem on Sunday (after cutover to our new IN) where some subscribers sms's were not delivered. This was fixed on Sunday (it also applied to me). If you have this problem, suggest you switch your phone off for 2 minutes and try again. If you still have this problem let me know. Its amazing how quickly you assume the worst of us! Not quickly, Sir:-) It's the expected behaviour when one pays for a service. They don't expect hitches like these. Mine was such that some SMS were getting delivered while some were not. I tried to establish a pattern, whether it was prefix related, but it wasn't, so I decided to call CC (Customer Care), and was told the same: Switch off and on for a few minutes. It was hard to "buy" that as a solution so I just said my prayers and later it just worked. Of course you had put an ad on the papers regarding the maintenance. The only problem with that as was it said you only expected it to affect prepaid customers. I, being an Advantage customer, never expected to be affected, so I believe I (as an individual) am/was entitles to that assumption that you fear:-) It might be the same case with Adera, but I don't know. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!" --from a /. post The information in this email and any attachments is confidential and may be legally privileged. It is intended only for the use of the named addressee. Emails are susceptible to alteration and their integrity cannot be guaranteed. Safaricom Limited does not accept legal responsibility for the contents of this email if the same is found to have been altered or manipulated. The contents and opinions expressed in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Safaricom Limited. Safaricom Limited disclaims any liability to the fullest extent permissible by law for any consequences that may arise from the contents of this email including but not limited to personal opinions, malicious and/or defamatory information and data/codes that may compromise or damage the integrity of the recipient's information technology systems. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender and immediately delete this email from your system. _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: info@aja.co.ke Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/info%40aja.co.ke

On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 3:44 PM, Alex Gakuru <alex.gakuru@yahoo.com> wrote:

And could they have quietly termitted cheaper GPRS services in favour of EDGE (on Blackberry at 2,000/= pm)?

I was configuring a mobile phone for my workmate yesterday but one. After configuring the e-mail services, I did ask him to call Safaricom to get GPRS enabled. This was done quite fast by Safaricom Customer Care. However when he connected to browse, I realized that instead of displaying GPRS as the connection mode, it displayed EDGE. It did not quite get me thinking until this e-mail by Gakuru! Is there a cost factor to it though? Do they charge differently for EDGE [aka (E)GPRS] than GPRS? -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!" --from a /. post

I think this is a quality of service issue..and therefore a bigger debate. Edith _____ From: Odhiambo Washington [mailto:odhiambo@gmail.com] Sent: 28 February 2008 15:56 To: Edith Adera Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions Subject: Re: [kictanet] SMS Service by the 2 Operators On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Edith Adera <eadera@idrc.or.ke> wrote: Mobile Operators, Is there any particular reason why about 70-80% of sms are not being delivered in the last 1 month or so? I thought this applied to me alone:-) However, are there representatives of mobile operators (who are at the level of addressing such matters) on this forum? I remember one request that we should not expect MJ to be at such a level, so maybe you could just call 200 for Safaricom and 700 for Celtel. However, I must note one point even if it offends others: Celtel Customer care is better in response and problem resolution so I am positive they will address your issues adequately, and to your satisfaction. I've experienced this since 2000. My experience with Safaricom has been painful, especially with support, but mostly with their billing. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!" --from a /. post

This customer service issue is one that safaricom just has to take in hand. Celtel may be lagging behind a bit but there is a turnaround on the ground on people's views of them. As people continue to give them a chance and a hearing, one is likely to see in due course a turnaround in subscriber buy in. It starts with someone having two numbers and then dropping one. Perhaps the customer care issue could be not as hard to solve. I would put it to you that safaricom should outsource the customer service function entirely. It may be hard to find one call centre locally that handle their sheer size, but we have seen people in the outsourcing industry forming a consortium to support the humanitarian efforts for the internally displaced people. They can do the same for safaricom and the nature of business being what it is, they can significantly scale up their operations if they new that pioneering business like safaricom was behind them. This is not a new concept. The main advantage if it is that not only would safaricom's (and KQ's and Equity's and many other players) efficiency and business capacity increase but also it would provide an anchor for the local industry to be able to get business from elsewhere. The more employed people in that industry, the better the quality of the safaricom customer because they call more etc. The other aspect of the safaricom customer care problem is the physical one. Now that you cnt call them you must go to a handful of locations around nairobi for example, queue for an hour before you have an elementary question answered. How about, by way of solution, having more two desk safaricom customer service checkpoints every couple of kilometres in the neighbourhoods? You know 5 or so in buruburu, 1 in south c, one in nairobi west, 5 around kibera etc I even have a name for such dukas - safaricom jirani. (Oops, they may never use it now, but if they do remember where it came from and michael a bottle of excellent whitw wine will suffice as payment for sharp idea he! he!) I'm willing to bet that same bottle of wine that none of this is original and that MJ has heard it before. What don't we know, michael? Al Kags Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone provided by Celtel Kenya -----Original Message----- From: Simon Mayoye <smayoye@yahoo.com> Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:23:08 To:alkags@alkags.com Cc:KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Subject: Re: [kictanet] SMS Service by the 2 Operators I support Wash on the issue on customer response,I pitty especially safaricom's prepaid customers,calls made to 100 will never go thro'--maybe 1 out of 1000 calls will go thro' and safaricom knows that.And the reason they give is that many subcribers(more than they can handle) do make customer care calls,then I wonder who are these customers whose calls go thro'.I think safaricom has more clients than they can support.   Imagine an ISP being called by its customer without successfully going thro',you can agree with me that the next day they will be with another ISP.   I wonder if MJ has enough attendants to customer calls or there is a problem with their call center if they have any.   I bet it is true Kenyans are spoilt for choice in every aspect of life except with the mobile industry.Either choose Safaricom which is more creative but unreachable or go with Celtel atleast reachable but not so creative. Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo@gmail.com> wrote: On Thu, Feb 28, 2008 at 2:20 PM, Edith Adera <eadera@idrc.or.ke <mailto:eadera@idrc.or.ke> > wrote: Mobile Operators, Is there any particular reason why about 70-80% of sms are not being delivered in the last 1 month or so?   I thought this applied to me alone:-) However, are there representatives of mobile operators (who are at the level of addressing such matters) on this forum? I remember one request that we should not expect MJ to be at such a level, so maybe you could just call 200 for Safaricom and 700 for Celtel. However, I must note one point even if it offends others: Celtel Customer care is better in response and problem resolution so I am positive they will address your issues adequately, and to your satisfaction. I've experienced this since 2000. My experience with Safaricom has been painful, especially with support, but mostly with their billing. -- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ "Oh My God! They killed init! You Bastards!"                        --from a /. post _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: smayoye@yahoo.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/smayoye%40yahoo.com ---------------- Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage. <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=51438/*http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs> _______________________________________________ kictanet mailing list kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/listinfo/kictanet This message was sent to: alkags@alkags.com Unsubscribe or change your options at http://lists.kictanet.or.ke/mailman/options/kictanet/alkags%40alkags.com

Simon Mayoye wrote: .Either choose Safaricom which is more

creative but unreachable or go with Celtel atleast reachable but not so creative.

Careful...this may just lead to a flame war! :)