The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) recently took a brazen approach to regulating the arrangements between internet service providers (ISPs) and customers by introducing the Guidelines for Preparation of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) by Internet Service Providers of 2024 (the Guidelines). In June 2024, the TCRA published the Guidelines aimed at defining the basic structure of SLAs; setting requirements for minimum levels of service; defining the scope of services provided and response times; establishing performance standards; outlining communication channels and protocols for reporting and addressing issues; helping manage customer expectations; creating a framework for monitoring and reviewing parties; and generally building confidence between ISPs and their customers. Previously, the Electronic and Postal Communications (Consumer Protection) Regulations, 2018 (the Consumer Protection Regulations) set out general obligations and information to be provided in service arrangements between all licensees and consumers, but these did not go into detail. Moving forward ISPs must comply with the Guidelines, which we have summarised in this alert.

Definitions

Some of the key interpretations for an SLA introduced by the Guidelines include:

“Consumer” means any person who uses electronic communications or postal products or services.

“Customer” means any person who obtains or seeks to obtain goods or services of any kind from a person undertaking activities pursuant to the EPOCA and includes subscribers.

“Force Majeure” means an event which is beyond the reasonable control of a licensee and which makes a licensee’s performance of its obligations under the licence impossible. Such events may include but are not limited to fires, floods, epidemics, quarantine restrictions, strikes, wars or revolutions.

“Maintenance window” means a time between 00:00 hours and 04:00 hours East African Time within which planned maintenance, that can potentially affect service provision, is performed.

“Scheduled maintenance” means planned maintenance carried out in the service provider’s networks.

“Service Level Agreement” means a formal agreement between the service provider and a customer of the provided services, that is reached after a negotiating activity with the scope to assess service characteristics, quality and level of services delivered, responsibilities and priorities of either party.

Content requirements of SLAs

The new Guidelines establish terms and conditions to be contained in SLAs between customers and ISPs offering internet services through fibre optic cables, VSAT and point-to-point wireless links. While the Consumer Protection Regulations obligated licensees’ contracts to be in English and Kiswahili as well as including rates, terms and condition of services offered, quality of service, service delivery time and service areas covered, the current Guidelines require SLAs entered into by ISPs to clearly detail certain content.

For starters, the language choice of an SLA (English or Kiswahili) will depend on the language in which the customer is conversant and therefore ISPs will need to have both options readily available and detail the description of services and service dependencies to effectively utilise the service.

Furthermore, the SLA will need to elaborate on not only the applicable rates or charges for the service provided, but also what the charges include (if any); elements of the charge; method of its calculation; the frequency of the charge (or other circumstances that give rise to the charge); and whether the charges or elements thereof will be subject to change from time to time, as well as the circumstances of such changes and how a customer will be informed of such changes.

Specifically, in terms of service, the SLA must contain the following terms and conditions:

• commencement date of the SLA;
• duration of the SLA;
• manner and consequences of termination (where applicable);
• situations where early termination is possible;
• amount and method of calculating charges payable upon early termination;
• terms and conditions of renewal of the contract (if applicable);
• terms and conditions of disconnection and reconnection, and fees that may be charged for such disconnection or reconnection;
• terms and conditions that may apply to refund any deposit (including timing and deductions, or charges applicable in such an instance);
• terms and conditions relating to situations that may give rise to the interruption, withdrawal or discontinuation of services;
• terms and conditions relating to the delivery, installation or activation of the service; and
• whether provisions or elements of the service are subject to change or review, and how the customer will be notified of such changes and the frequency of the review.

To the extent that there is a warranty relating to products, the Guidelines also require this information to be supplied. In particular, the provision in the SLA should include how to obtain the warranty service (if needed) and, where a copy of the warranty is not provided with the products, how and where it is available. Notably, this requirement is also reflected in regulation 5(6) of the Consumer Protection Regulations but the Guidelines require further provisions in respect of product warranties.

Relative to the nature of the service provided, an SLA should also contain details of violations of Acceptable Use Policy such as using the services to transmit material that violates any applicable local, national or international law, or using the services to make fraudulent offers to advance any type of financial scam.

Under the Guidelines, SLAs must be specific and detailed so as to define the expectations for services to be offered. In contrast with the Consumer Protection Regulations, the SLA has specified what needs to be covered, including stating the service description by defining each service to be offered, the features, functionalities and performance standards. The SLA must also include a provision on service availability that will establish the expected uptime percentage for the service and define the acceptable downtime window for planned maintenance and outages. In defining the expectation for services, an ISP is also required to include a provision on performance metrics, which outline measurable performance indicators. For example, ISP indicators may include latency, bandwidth, packet loss and such thresholds. In turn, the Guidelines also require the SLA to contain provisions on compensation mechanisms, remedies or penalties for where the agreed level of service is not met.

In terms of customer support, ISPs are required to detail the available channels and define the response times for different support requests. The Guidelines go further by requiring there to be a detailed escalation matrix for support services and the corresponding response times. Support services may be outlined as level 1 support that would entail basic technical support provided via the phone, email or chat offering basic issue resolution, ticket creation and detailing its availability. Level 2 support would offer advanced technical support with staffed technicians to address complex issues and detail availability for this level. Lastly, level 3 support would need to engage specialised technical experts to offer advanced network diagnostics and root cause analysis. The escalation matrices under SLAs should also incorporate a fault management procedure that describes where to report, detailed escalation contacts (name, time, contacts) and the level of escalation, particularly for outage times. Such provisions will assist customers in scenarios such as the fibre outage incident in early 2024, where the majority of the country lost network.

The Guidelines notwithstanding, ISPs must still ensure that the existing regulations are adhered to. The Guidelines make specific reference to quality of service (as per the Electronic and Postal Communications (Quality of Service) Regulations of 2018) and billing and charges (as provided under regulation 9 of the Consumer Protection Regulations).

Where necessary the SLA must state exceptions or exclusions relevant to the ISP. For the purposes of ISPs, this may include force majeure events as defined earlier, planned maintenance and/or issues stemming from third party infrastructure, as was the case in May 2024 where the undersea optic fibre cable was destroyed resulting in network disruption across several countries in Africa.

Conclusion

It is clear that, with these Guidelines in place, less is left to misunderstanding and misinterpretation on arrangements between ISPs and consumers. That said, ISPs are still required to formulate their own SLAs and the Guidelines simply aim to streamline and outline the terms and conditions.