Annoying New Safaricom Internet Data Bundles

Safaricom continues to be my Internet service provider; I use a Safaricom 3G WiFi modem in the house and carry an old IDEOS to use as a hotspot when I am out and about.

For the last year or so, I have been purchasing a large Internet bundle and then sambaza (share out) the data between the two modems and 4 mobile phones in our household. I would sambaza 300MB or 500MB at a go by sending a text message to 450.

Last month I purchased an 8GB bundle for KES 4,000 and received 4GB night shift data (usable from 10pm to 10am). The 8GB bundle had an expiry date of July 31, 2015 and the 4GB night shift data expired on February 15, 2015.

At the end of February Safaricom introduced new Internet data plans with drastic and annoying changes;

• reducing the life of the the data bundles, down from 6 months to 30 or 90 days for a comparative data bundle;
• capping the size of data bundle you can sambaza to 10MB twice a day or a maximum of 600MB each month;
• reducing the the night shift data period from 10pm to 10am to 10pm to 6am, which will result in unspent night shift data.

My monthly Internet bill will most probably remain the same but I will need to deal with the annoying aspects of the changes;

1. I will be paying more per MB. Last month I paid 0.33 KES/MB for 12GB I purchased since I used up all the night shift data;
2. I am back to the difficult task of managing the purchase of Internet bundles on each device through the inefficient *544# USSD or http://www.safaricom.com/bundles system.
3. If I purchase the 30 day bundles I will need to deal with the sour feeling of my Internet bundle expiring at the end of the month;
4. Alternatively I can purchase the 90 day bundles and pay more per MB.

Either way I am unhappy with Safaricom and feel they are more concerned about limiting the reselling of Internet bundles than valuing loyal customers.