Startup Kenya

This morning I woke to a full page advert in the dailies announcing that Safaricom had launched a new data tariff for KSh.2 per minute billed per second. Instantly several questions popped up in my mind, many of which were gratifyingly answered by @kachwanya's and @mkaigwa's excellent posts. The concept of per minute browsing readily intrigued me because of my rural cyber cafe exploits as well as my general interest in Safaricom's data products . Before I could devise a strategy on how these new tariffs would impact my internet hungry businesses, I decided to give it a test trial. I figured a 10 minute session (presumably worth KSh. 20) should be sufficient to answer questions about speed and reliability. Below are the results of my test trial, which I should warn are not scientific and it would do well for you to carry out your own trials. 1. Deciding that a 3G modem would get the job done best, I first made sure that my bandwidth balance was expired. This was done ...

Since my post on why I won't be ditching my Safaricom line any time soon , I've been getting a lot of love from Big Green affiliates broadcasting the post. What these fellows should have been doing is sorting out the many issues with their products and services. Since everybody likes lists, I'm going to put up another one today - on the 10 things that I really hate about Safaricom. 1. Masaa ya Kubamba tariff. Surprised? Don't be. This is the most annoyingly complex product Safaricom have ever devised in their evil labs. First of all, how to determine what you'll be charged based the card you use to top up might make sense to the financial division, but it is absolute torture to the consumer. To make matters worse it isn't clear what happens if you top up 100, use 50 then top up 30 with M-PESA, sambaza 80, redeem bonga points, okoa jahazi, receive 100 through sambaza: what tariff are you on? 2. Okoa Jahazi They should call this product Tuna shylock, at 10% ...

I'm going to stop reading newspapers. If you live in Kenya, and see the daily headlines you'll understand why. It seems like day after day I am assaulted with ever more dire headlines. Either the editors of these newspapers have suddenly turned into sadists intent on breaking this country's spirit, or our spirit is already broken and we are living in a very sick, sick Kenya. Over the past weeks I have read about greedy retailers who crammed their tiny stores with goods but couldn't provide decent exits or fire prevention equipment; policemen who demanded bribes to allow highly dangerous petrol looting, arsonists-looters who decided 'if I can't have it, no one can', ministers of government who dished out food reserves and threatened the lives of millions through starvation, custodians of investors funds who used these funds as their personal piggy banks, examiners who put in doubt the academic qualifications of a generation of students, and the list goes on a...