ZICTA fines Airtel, orders customer compensation over outage

Details: Manny Pham; Category: Regulation; 14 July 2025; 4935 views

ZICTA fines Airtel and orders customer compensation over June outage

Zambia’s telecoms regulator has fined Airtel and ordered it to compensate customers following a major network outage that caused widespread disruption.

The Zambia Information and Communications Technology Authority (ZICTA) said there was “significant concern” from consumers after a connectivity blackout on June 10 affected the capital Lusaka and Central Province, severely disrupting data services.

ZICTA said it was “not satisfied” with Airtel’s response to the incident and found the operator in breach of several regulatory obligations under its mobile licence. These included failing to resolve critical network faults within the required timeframe, failing to notify both the authority and subscribers of the outage, and failing to issue a timely public apology.

Airtel was fined ZMK828,000 (approximately US$35,600) and ordered to pay ZMK5.2 million (US$223,600) in compensation to affected customers.

“These are serious breaches that undermine consumer trust and the integrity of our national telecommunications systems,” said ZICTA Director General Collins Mbulo.

“These sanctions reflect the seriousness with which we treat consumer rights and network accountability.”

In response, Airtel pledged to fast-track its three-year network investment plan into a single year, committing US$75 million to improve performance. The operator aims to deploy 400 new sites by December 2025, upgrade all existing sites to 4G, and roll out 175 new 5G sites across the country.