What To Do When You…whatever; Safaricom, YU, Orange and Zain. I Missed the iHub Launch too.

Now since i missed an invite to the premier iHubnairobi launch event of the day i shall sit about over here watching TV and regaling you lot with the most minute minutiae of my life currently and the current search for a one in all cell service provider.

You may proceed at your leisure to forget about the first bit since i shall not be telling you waste about it, at least for now. And no, this post shall not be funny, or make any sense whatsoever. I am just hitting my keyboard in the hope that something i can post shows up. Now, where was i? Right.

The current main contender is Zain. I love to text, i hate calling or getting called, in fact i should shortly block all voice calls from this line, they tend to interfere with my current love which happens to be TV watching, i do that to block out all the voices in my head calling me to dark places, reminding me of stuff which i would much rather not be thinking of but i digress. Text, yes Club 20 rocks my world right now, UNLIMITED, wait, no, 300 texts in a 24 hour period. Not that i would ever send more than that but just try me, i have yet to count but i suspect i might come as close as possible to breaching that, i do have paragraphs in my Texts, i am hot like that. Their customer care once you figure out what number they are currently using are extremely helpful and most times can by the time you are done with the call have sorted out your problem.

Safaricom who have me by the ‘batteries’ line up a close second because i have had that line since the days they were 072. Anyone here from those days here, put up your hand, not that one, the left one, you have to use the mouse with the other. Sigh. MPESA is pretty much the only reason i have this line since that is the lifeline to my family who do their best to squeeze all my measly pay, that the government has equitably divided between us yet they haven’t shown me a reason why they must reside in my pocket. Was just on the phone now i have forgotted what i was supposed to be saying. Oh, data! Undeniably they have the fastest mobile data network in Kenya, in my experience at least as such i have a dedicated data line just for this which i haven’t topped up recently, budget constraints. Use the land-line numbers to reach them since 100 unreachable, will do their best to solve the problem and always will call you back with a resolution within 24 hours. Oh, and i almost forgot. Their recent 15 sms for 10 bob shillings and 5 sms for 5 bob shillings is extremely stupid. 15 texts, only? Plus you do not give me the option to buy more bundle within a 24 hour period? How stunted is that? Sheeet!

Orange, they have a decent product out. I love their SMS packages, voice is reasonable too, data packages are well priced and moderately quick but i would keep them on a tight prepaid leash. I had a contracted 12 months that i would never wish on my worst enemies, lost credit, late credit and basic network issues had me almost chomp off my own hand, they are still a parastatal no matter what they call themselves, customer care is there just to be there and are the most unhelpful people on the planet. Don’t bother calling them, they will introduce new problems with your line in addition to the ones you were already experiencing.

I have had limited contact with YU but so far i haven’t experienced a problem with their voice or text services, they currently offer unlimited talk time and well priced texts in my opinion is a good thing, unfortunately their Internet is extremely wanting. It gives you the image of them leasing a 128k line and using that to serve Internet to the entire population of Kenya. But maybe that is just me, have they recently improved anything? They also need to throw out sim cards at random and let people know that they exist, shortly it shall be THE network to be on. Their customer care is a tad too enthusiastic and that is spooky, turn it down.

I would like to have a company come up with a simple package for me:
• Unlimited data for use at home and on the road.
• Unlimited texts to all networks.
• A predetermined number of minutes to all networks that carry over in case i didn’t use them which would most likely be the case as i pretty much hate telephone calls but at times of emergency i might need to set that aside.

That is not unreasonable, for a reasonable amount per month and i would sell my left kidney to sign on. And on that number portability thing for later this year, i cannot wait to use my YU number on all networks. That would be awesome!

And Safaricom, i was about to hit my budget with the 4k for unlimited Internets and would have gladly paid that for the rest of the year, now i have to take my 4k and try and get Zuku cable internet hooked up to my house instead.

| Blue Angel ^ Roy Orbison |