There are four competing mobile telephone operators in Kenya, Airtel, Orange, Yu and Safaricom. So how do you chose which one's best for you?

First you should review your call pattern and data usage to establish what are the important criteria for your needs. Factors such as network coverage, discount schemes, travel abroad (roaming agreements), tariff options, payment schemes and any additional services available can be considered.

Statistics never lie. According to a new study by the Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK), Telkom Orange has the best voice service, 2G and 3G data performance in Nairobi. Safaricom comes in a close second across the three segments. In 3G data service provison, Safaricom’s throughput was 899.1 kpbs (kilobyte per second), a 97.2% accessibility and a 2.2 second delay. Orange had a 1079.2 kpbs throughput, 93.3% accessibility with a 1.2 second delay. Airtel had a  657.9 kpbs throughput with 96.7%accessibility and 1.5 second delay. YuMobile on their part are yet to launch 3G service.

In tems of voice, the COFEK study carried out SMS tests while monitoring call setup time, success rate, drop rate, quality and coverage. Both Safaricom and Orange had above average 2G data speeds as it regards to the global standards. However all networks were found to have below average 3G data speeds. Airtel and yuMobile both performed poorly in voice and data.

Safaricom was found to have the widest area of coverage across the country with the best indoor and outdoor coverage.

*Throughput is the amount of data that actually gets transmitted from your device, through the Internet to the web server and back within a single unit of time.  It is the average rate of successful message delivery over a communication channel.