The chairperson of ICT Association of Kenya and lawyer Adrian Kamotho has taken three telecommunication companies to court over arbitrary data bundle expiry.
In a suit filed before the Communications and Multimedia Appeals Tribunal, Kamotho wants Safaricom, Airtel Kenya and Telkom Kenya be prevented from deactivating customers’ unused data bundles upon expiry.
Kamotho said customers should be allowed to roll over and keep bundles even after expiry dates so long as their SIM cards are active, Daily Nation reported on Tuesday, October 22.
“Data bundles should not have an expiry date until used up‚ as long as the SIM card is active and the consumer keeps recharging,” he argued.
The IT practitioner noted, forcing users to deplete their data bundles within a specified period is not only irrational but also discriminatory since the usage is based on network and power availability.
He also wants the telcos to provide customers with the data tariffs and display the same on their websites so that users can track usage.
In June 2018, former Kiambu governor William Kabogo threatened to sue the network vendors over what he termed as “treating their data bundles like a pregnancy that once you carry it to term, you got no choice but give birth.”
“You cannot sell me sugar and then attach a condition that if I will not have consumed it within a specified time frame then you will come to repossess it…What you buy must belong to you,” he said.
