If you are an Airtel Kenya subscriber, there’s some good news: there’s finally, finally, a data manager.
If you have ever been tempted to subscribe to any of Airtel’s internet bundles, like Unliminet or the “Amazing” data bundles, and, like yours truly, forgotten to renew them on time when the subscription period lapses, then you’ve probably cursed for having been automatically switched to the normal pay-as-you-go plan thereby losing all your airtime. It happens.
That is such a bad user experience that it is surprising that, until yesterday, Airtel subscribers still had to make do with. Especially given that Safaricom has for long offered a data manager and even made it front and centre during its recent re-organization of its *544# shortcode.
That same shortcode is where Airtel Kenya subscribers can also activate the data manager from. Unlike in Safaricom’s case, however, the data manager menu is located on the second page. This means that it takes at least 2 steps for one to get to it. A third to finally get it working. Such a chore but hey, the feature is finally here. Hopefully, just like Safaricom has learned over the years, Airtel will get its act together real quick and move the data manager to the first page.
With Airtel Kenya finally availing the data manager feature, all of Kenya’s main network operators (the MVNOs miss out on this one) now offer their subscribers at least a way to have some form of control over their airtime consumption should they find themselves browsing out of bundle either because the said bundle has expired or gotten exhausted. Jamii Telecommunications Limited (JTL), the other holdout, introduced the data manager last month.
