Today's dailies carry a rare sight, a joint advert by Zain, Telkom Kenya and Essar Telecom Kenya supporting The Kenya Information  and  Communications Act (Fair Competition And Equality of Treatment) Regulations, 2010. The advert is also a response to the lone advert carried by Safaricom in yesterday's dailies .
Safaricom is against the new regulations that have now come into effect while the other network operators support them. The regulations define a 'dominant operator' and measures put in place to curb the dormant operator from engaging in practices that increase its dormancy at the expense of other operators.

The regulations require all licensees under the Kenya Information and Communications Act to maintain books of accounts as prescribed by the Act. It also binds the dormant operator in any communication segment to certain rules such as seeking permission before changing of prices, approval of interconnection fees amongst others. The regulations also seek to change barriers to other entrants in communication segments with dormant operators. Consumers expect drastic changes especially in the 3G communication segment which has one operator with the rest claiming the US$25 million licence fee to be too costly.

Lost in all the noise are regulations that bind all operators from observing certain practices such as not classifying consumers based on business or home. This may be aimed at ISPs and other data carriers that have perfected the art of having 'corporate' and 'home' users and then prioritizing their corporate users. All licensees are also barred from bundling of service charges such that a consumer only pays for what they need and not a bundle of several services when they only need a single service in the bundle.
What remains now is to see the effect of the regulations on the communications market with many especially waiting to see what happens in the GSM 3G segment. It also remains to be seen how CCK (Communications Commission of Kenya), the market regulator will enforce the regulationss and at what speed.
Fair Competition and Equality of Treatment Regulations 2010

Tariff Regulations 2010