A couple of days ago, Safaricom announced changes about their Home Fibre product. They maintained the doubled speeds that were introduced in March 2020 following the start of the pandemic. This was a good move because users had become used to better speeds (than the paid for).
What wasn’t revealed was that the changes also introduced a fair usage policy, meaning that Home Fibre is no longer unlimited. These changes are tucked in the product’s terms and conditions and will become effective from March 2021.
The Safaricom Home Fibre plans are subject to a Fair Usage Policy with usage limits and throttle speeds as indicated in the table below. Upon reaching the Fair Usage limit for the package, the speeds will be throttled to 1Mbps for Bronze plans and 3Mbps for Silver, Gold, and Diamond plans for the remainder of the validity period of the subscription.
-Safaricom
This means that customers will have up to 1TB of data that once exhausted will see their speeds lowered.
Here are the details:
| Package | Speeds (Mbps) | Price | Fair usage limit | Speeds after FUP (Mbps) |
| Bronze | 8 | 2900 | 500 GB | 1 |
| Silver | 20 | 4000 | 1 TB | 3 |
| Gold | 40 | 6000 | 1 TB | 3 |
| Platinum | 100 | 12000 | 1 TB | 3 |
So, let’s see what this means: if you have the entry level Bronze package, you will only have 500 GB of data to use, after which your speeds drop to 1 Mbps. For context, that can only happen if you use 16 GB of data on a daily basis for 30 days. That’s a substantial amount, but it is possible to hit that limit (for people who download a lot of files or use data-heavy programs and apps).
Safaricom says that FUP has been designed based on actual data usage. This means the operator checked how customers use the product, and then developed the policy around that pattern.
Safaricom adds that almost 90 percent of Home Fibre customers do not hit the limits (500 GB – 1 TB). Those who do are actually resellers (the operator does not do that) because the product is a Home service and is not designed to be available for resale.
Naturally, customers will be concerned by this development, especially since they seek some security with a fiber connection vs data bundles. Our question is, if 90 percent of customers do not hit the data cap, what is the need for limiting the speeds then? Clamping down resellers who have carved a business model out of the product is probably justifiable, but only if the average user does not see a change in their experience.
Bye-bye free installation
This part is not exactly a shocker, since whether to absorb a set up cost or not is a business decision that a company has to make. New customers will be required to pay KES 3000 for installation services, which include the router. Previously, the exercise was free.
Those who move houses are now asked to bring their routers, else they will pay KES 6500 for a new one.
What are you thoughts about this development?
Well that’s our cue to exit and wait another 20 years for a better service provider.
There are so many alternatives. Safaricom shouldn’t feel superior in Fibre space. Capping data as if people are using simcards.
Utterly unacceptable..total nonesense from Safaricom.
This company man smfh
Customer unfriendly policies
Na ndo nimeweka juzi though
Well then, back to our useless Zuku I suppose
I think so too
Clamping down resellers makes no sense. They already have a contention ratio for that purpose. After all, most of these resellers target areas where Home Fiber is missing.
Pay 6500 for that 10year old WiFi b/g/n router with no option to change the DNS server? Plus, they already blocked inbound traffic to the public IPs by implementing carrier grade NAT. Helpful customer service agents are also a thing of the past. The shimmer and shine is gone forever.
Alot of non sense. Home Fibre is prone to outages..some lasting several hours. And no compensation for such downtime. Very soon, small start ups will spring up. Safaricom is pretty much like KPLC and the former Posta..and Kenya Railways.
When there’s little competition ,this is bound to happen. They will milk you to the bone, make billions then spit on your face by getting you addicted to another product known as fuliza. Competition is key. When there are options, providers will even Lick your behind.
only M-Pesa is fair in Safaricom, everything else is futile!
Hey! M-PESA fair? My foot! The whole safaricom enterprise is a blood sucking behemoth designed to eventually kill it’s benefactors. Luckily, nothing lasts forever, nothing!
Let me start mobolizing Zuku and airtel marketing for customers from safaricom, my friend we are big group of 600plus and we are moving out soon ,today we goner work with zuku thus it hatuwezi hii upuzi ,si coolman angeendelea kuishi
That’s what happens when they leave a corporate office to a fellow countryman 😂😂 Eeeeh they always find a way to loot 😂😂😧.
that is being greedy, this is squeezing life out of already a dying person in the name of revitalizing him from his sick bed