Telkom Kenya now faces a suit from Consumer Federation of Kenya (Cofek) for deceiving customers to purchase its unlimited bundles.

Through its campaign dubbed: Unlimited changes with Orange, Telkom Kenya has been selling its unlimited internet packages for months. But as Cofek puts it, while customers assume they will get uninterrupted services, some are being cut off while online.

As posted in The Standard, Cofek Secretary, Stephen Mutoro said, “We have received several complaints concerning Telkom Kenya’s deceptive marketing that hoodwinks customers, which is contrary to section 46 of the Constitution on consumer rights. We have put them on notice and we will be taking the company to court in the next seven days if it does not come clean and tell consumers the truth,”

Customer complaints sent to Cofek state that subscribers only get 20GB bundles at the rate of KES 2,999 per month as opposed to getting unlimited internet. Once the 20GB data is exhausted customers get cut off and are forced to buy the fixed bundle per GB.

In defense of its unlimited internet package, Telkom Kenya said it does not cut off users but only reduces the internet speeds once they exceed certain limits.

Through an email interview posted in The Standard, Telkom Kenya Chief Executive Mickael Ghossein said, “To maintain acceptable levels of quality for all our customers on such a wireless service, there is need for regulation via a fair usage policy, that applies to both pre-paid and post-paid unlimited Internet offers via mobile and modem. This therefore means that there are customers who will experience a reduction in speeds should they exceed certain thresholds……. It is also important to note that it is only one’s connection speeds that are reduced; the volumes received remain unlimited and neither is one’s line blocked. This reduction in speeds is not permanent, as it will only affect that particular billing cycle, after which the consumer’s speeds will resume to normal, at the beginning of a new billing cycle,”

Cofek insists that the response from Telkom Kenya is not acceptable and has stated that it is writing to the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) to compel them to give full disclosure and if this does not happen, the consumer lobby will take them to court.

Mutoro argues that it is unfair for users to spend KES 12,000 on buying router, Orange modem and set up fee for the unlimited internet package of KES 2,990 monthly only to realize that the service has restrictions.