Liquid Telecom launched its home internet solution at the start of the year as many people were becoming accustomed to home internet largely thanks to the looming lockdown in the country that has since been partially lifted. Of late the company has come into scrutiny and accused of offering slow internet speeds, poor customer care, and shoddy installation works.
ALSO READ: Here are Liquid Telcom Uganda’s internet data bundle prices for home use
The Slow speeds explained
Techjaja reached out to the company to clarify the allegations and in a statement, it confirmed that;
“There was also a new challenge where our network was overwhelmed by traffic and heavy usage especially for wireless. We, therefore, increased on the sectors to offload the heavy traffic on the existing sectors and services restored to normal.“
The offer? Liquid Telecom was offering unlimited internet at unseen prices on the market via wireless or fiber save for Zuku Fiber’s FTTH solution, only that the latter is limited in reach in part due to the fiber technology used. It is technically advanced but expensive to lay thus its limited availability.
As of this writing, Liquid’s original UGX 119,000 Bronze package for 10Mbps on a shared connection was scrapped and replaced with UGX 169,000 Silver package that promises even more speeds at 20Mbps that now acts as a base offer, still on a shared connection.
According to the company, the reason for the price hike was to ease network congestion, that existing and to enable new customers enjoy a seamless experience. The new offer, however, attracted an installation fee of UGX 120,000 to better manage connections.
A Shared Connection
You could be asking, what is a shared connection? A shared internet connection means all bandwidth is split amongst all users and their respective devices, unlike a dedicated connection where all bandwidth is dedicated to a single user. It should be noted that shared connections are no guarantee that users will get the maximum speeds in fact recent reviews of different Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have indicated that many clients get disappointed with such services only to get slow 52 kbps speeds during certain hours of the day than the advertised blazing fast speeds.
It is important to note that Liquid Telecom’s home offering is a shared connection with a contention ratio of 1-5. That means a single connection is against 4 other users to make the 5. Therefore, the quality of service is subject to the above.
How does it compare against the competition?
With the technical jargon out of the way, let’s see how Liquid Telecom’s basic package compares to offerings from other providers for first-time installations
| Service Provider | Home Solution | Connection Type | Offer | Bundle | Price (UGX) | Installation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liquid Telecom | Silver | Fixed | Up to 20Mbps | Unlimited | 169,000 | 120,000 |
| Roke Telkom | Roke Classic Plus | Fixed | At least 5Mbps | 40GB | 100,000 | 300,000 |
| Zuku Fiber | Basic | Fixed | Up to 10Mbps | Unlimited | 147,900 | N/A |
| Airtel | Airtel Broadband | Fixed | At least 10Mbps | 50GB | 100,000 | 280,000 |
| Smile | 30GB Monthly | Mobile | Up to 21Mbps | 30GB | 100,000 | N/A |
| MTN | WakaNet | Mobile | 4G LTE | 35GB | 75,000 | 245,000 |
Ideally, Liquid telecom’s offering is affordable compared to the competition given they’re no volumes to speak of but rather speeds on an unlimited connection.
Most of the competition, on the other hand, bundles its packages and prices reflect accordingly as you can see above. The only comparable player as said earlier is Zuku Fiber but is limited in reach and only offers the FTTH solution.
We shall soon get our own Liquid Telecom connection and do our own thorough speed tests on their services.
The shoddy installations and customer care debacle
Liquid Telecom also clarified why their clients had an unpleasant customer care experience during the same period. While speaking to Techjaja they confirmed that
“With the overwhelming number of customers;- triple the usual onboarding number there came pressure on our customer service department. This created congestion on the helpline causing a delay or no response at times to certain calls.”
The company says that it is actively working to actively beef up its customer service department to meet demand.
To avoid shoddy work and delayed installations, not only did they reinstate the installation fee, but also managed to sub contract more companies to do installations on their behalf. At the current estimate, “these could install 40 to 50 customers daily and as of today, all the backlog has been cleared” they confirmed.
Also Read: A list of Home Internet Bundles You Should Checkout
Liquid Telecom, on the other hand, offers connections via both wireless using microwave and fiber. Fiber is however limited to select apartment blocks like Bukoto Apartments, Greentop Apartments – Mpiji, Ebony Villas – Entebbe, NL Apartments – Mukono, Casa Fortuna – Wakiso, Casa Mocella Home – Masaka, Venus Apartments – Jinja.
