Kenyan consumers are no longer grumbling mostly about dropped calls and patchy network coverage. New figures from the Communications Authority of Kenya show that data billing disputes and fraud have overtaken poor connectivity as the leading source of grievances against the country’s mobile operators. The shift shows just how deeply telecom services are now tied to Kenyans’ financial lives.
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The regulator’s latest consumer report covers the fourth quarter of the 2025/26 financial year. It shows that telecoms remained the single largest source of escalated cases handed to the Authority. Data services alone generated 195 cases. That number far outpaced the 44 issues linked to voice services. Data billing and charges made up the single biggest category on its own, with 75 cases. That is more than the combined tally for service delays, quality of service, interruptions and network inaccessibility taken individually.
This pattern marks a departure from years past. Kenyans used to flood the regulator with grievances about call drops, slow internet speeds and unstable connections. But voice-related cases for the quarter tell a different story now. Of the 44 logged, call termination accounted for 16. Quality of service issues came to 13. Fraudulent calls and messages made up seven. On the SMS side, billing and charges again dominated. Delays and failures in service provision followed, along with quality of service concerns.
So why the change? The Communications Authority says the numbers point to a wider worry about whether subscribers are getting fair value for their money. Billing disputes, it notes, are increasingly tangled up with how consumers judge service quality overall. But the regulator also flagged a bigger and more troubling trend. Mobile phone numbers now double as digital identities for banking, mobile money and other services. That means weaknesses in telecom systems expose subscribers to more than just inconvenience. Unexpected charges, fraud and identity theft are now part of the risk that comes with owning a SIM card in Kenya.
Digital financial services and mobile money added another 110 cases to the quarter’s tally. Cybercrime and the criminal use of ICT infrastructure accounted for a further 75. Broadcasting-related concerns stood at 42. Mobile operators, meanwhile, failed to resolve more than a third of the cases raised against them. That failure rate prompted the Authority to step in directly. Most cases were eventually resolved, though scores remained under active follow-up by the time the report was published.
These findings build on a pattern that has been growing for months. Earlier reports from the regulator through 2025 and into 2026 already showed billing and fraud climbing up the list of subscriber concerns. Lawmakers have added pressure of their own. Parliament has previously accused operators of shortchanging subscribers through data bundle expiry policies. MPs have pushed the Authority to force compensation for unused bundles.
For Kenya’s telecom operators, chiefly Safaricom, Airtel and Telkom, this shift adds a new layer of pressure. It comes just as the regulator separately moves to toughen network quality enforcement. Proposals on the table include raising the minimum compliance score from 80 percent to 90 percent. The regulator also wants to apply penalties county by county, rather than relying on a national average. So even operators that keep call quality within acceptable limits may still face scrutiny. Regulators, lawmakers and frustrated customers now want answers on data billing and fraud protection too.
The Authority’s message was clear in its latest report. Protecting Kenya’s telecom subscribers will take more than better signal strength going forward. Operators will need to treat security and billing transparency with the same urgency they have long reserved for network uptime.
