Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

As soon as my late grandma [mhsrip] told me ‘never bite more than you can chew’, she added, ‘mgema akisifiwa, pombe hulitia maji’.

I always blog about Safaricom because it is my hope that this big Kenyan company could up their game and style up to make sure their services and internal processes are upto scratch. But ohhhh, how disappointed I always am!

One of the biggest problems facing Safaricom is the glaring lack of capacity planning. At end of months and weekends when most mpesa transactions take place, there are always delays and outages. Obviously based on hardware constraints and total lack of responsible sysadminery.

The fact that Safaricom are just users of Mpesa and know absolutely zilch about the internal modus operandi, code  and garbage collection in Mpesa core system, could be used to excuse them form the blame. They dont own the Mpesa System like Zain owns Zap. But you would expect better from a company termed as the most profitable in Kenya.

It has become a common knowledge and a widely accepted fact that Safaricom are in business because Kenyans are always forgiving and ready to settle for mediocrity. Network congestion, Mpesa Outages etc are the order of the day.

The common phrase in town, ‘mpesa iko down’ [no pun intended] after mpesa servers go for lunch is generally acceptable. But watch out, Zap and yuCash are catching up.

Of late, Safcom have introduced a all you can eat Internet bundle for 7 days at Kshs 999. To the uneducated and freebies loving majority of Kenyans, this is an offer from heaven. But this could not be further from the truth.

Imagine the JAM that would be on our roads if for one week the government offered FREE fuel for everyone. That is what is happening to Safaricom Internet.

The once famed 2MBPS pipe I could get now crawls at a pathetic 6Kbps.

Poor capacity planning. Once again.

The 999 per week journeymen are now jamming the lines and slurping all the capacity for the ardent daily users. You would expect Safaricom to demilitarize the Unlimited Net from the mainstream net, but hey, they are Safaricom. They can do whatever they want.

The unlimited internet bundle is now SO LIMITED, it should be converted to a company. Maybe they can do another IPO on it.

Maybe sasa I will even be banned from wearing green shirts. Adios!