Vodacom Tanzania to compensate customers affected by internet service outage

What you need to know:

Vodacom internet service encountered problems earlier hours of Sunday, February 23, causing irksome frustrations among its data consumers across the country.

Dar es Salaam. Vodacom Tanzania said on Monday, February 24, 2020, it will compensate its data customers who were affected by yesterday’s internet service outage and those who bought bundles to be reimbursed accordingly.
At minimum, all customers using internet on prepaid and postpaid plans will receive 300 and 600 Mbs respectively; those whose bundles expired yesterday will receive their bundle balance in form of Mbs; those who purchased a daily bundle will receive their bundle allocation in addition to the free bundle above; those who bought an additional bundle when the fault occurred will be reimbursed in form of airtime or M-Pesa according to the means they used to purchase the bundle, also in addition to the free bundle, this is according to the Vodacom’s Corporate Affairs Director Rosalynn Mworia.

The Vodacom internet was restored at 8:20 pm on Sunday, February 23 after it encountered problems earlier hours of Sunday, causing irksome frustrations among its data consumers across the country.

“As promised, following yesterday’s internet service restoration, we have started compensating our customers for the inconvenience experienced, " said Ms Mworia when she spoke exclusively to The Citizen over the telephone on Monday.

The telecom company on Sunday explained that the service downtime was due to an undersea-fibre-cable cut in Mozambique for which restoration had been lengthy due to heavy rains in the Indian Ocean.

However, the customers were immediately assured that the telecom company had nevertheless sought an interim solution via its primary provider- Seacom in efforts to restore internet service.

"We would like to thank our customers for their patience and inform them that the compensation is generous, fair and transparent and will cover all those who were affected, " said Ms Mworia on Monday.

Adding: “We regret any inconvenience that our customers experienced as a result of the outage. We are committed to offering the best services to our customers and we are taking all necessary measures to ensure we continue to service our customers at the world-class standards."

For the past six years the number of people going online has doubled in Tanzania, from 9 million in 2013 to over 23 million people in 2019, Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) quarterly report-2019 shows.