Zambia: Airtel Zambia to Compensate Customers Following Prolonged Network Disruption

Airtel Zambia is now facing significant penalties after a widespread network outage on February 2, 2025, left customers without service for over three hours. The disruption, which affected Lusaka and several other provinces, has prompted the country’s telecom regulator, ZICTA, to order the company to pay a total of 4 million Zambian kwacha (approximately $142,500) in compensation to affected users.

In addition to the financial penalty, ZICTA has mandated that Airtel Zambia upgrade its network infrastructure—focusing particularly on its data centres—by February 28, 2025. The telecom provider is also required to implement new systems designed to enhance service reliability and prevent future outages. ZICTA has made it clear that they will continue to monitor the situation closely and are prepared to take further action if similar issues recur.

Airtel Zambia has already issued an apology to its customers, assuring them that services have been restored. However, this incident is not an isolated case; the company had previously been fined for similar service disruptions at the end of 2023, which also led to customer compensation.

The crackdown on poor network performance is not unique to Zambia. Across Africa, telecom regulators are increasingly enforcing strict measures against subpar service. For instance, in August 2023, Airtel Chad was hit with an $8.3 million fine over declining network performance. In the same year, Cameroon’s regulator imposed a combined fine of $9.8 million on all four of its mobile operators for inadequate service quality. Similarly, in Togo, both Moov Africa Togo and Togocom were warned in June 2023 to improve their services, with Togocom having already faced a $3.7 million penalty in 2022 for failing to maintain uninterrupted mobile service. Additionally, Orange Guinea was fined $1.1 million in 2022 after a major outage left customers stranded for more than 30 hours.

With regulators across the continent tightening their grip on telecom service standards, Airtel Zambia will need to make significant improvements to avoid facing even steeper penalties in the future.