If you’ve ever noticed that your bank’s USSD code isn’t quite the same on Safaricom as it is on Airtel, there’s a reason, and Kenya’s regulator has just changed it.
The Communications Authority of Kenya has issued a new framework governing how telecommunications numbering resources are allocated, and the headline change is straightforward. Short codes will now be assigned according to the service they support rather than the operator delivering them.
CA Director General David Mugonyi set out the changes in a notice published this week. The framework itself, formally the Framework for Administration and Management of Telecommunications Numbering, Naming, Addressing and Identification Resources, is on the Authority’s website.
What Was Broken
Under the old system, short codes belonged to operators. A bank wanting to send transaction alerts had to go through Safaricom for its Safaricom customers, Airtel for its Airtel customers, and Telkom for the rest, because each operator controlled its own numbering blocks.
The result was exactly what you’d expect. The same service reaching the same customer base through different numbers depending on which SIM was in the phone. Three sets of paperwork, three sets of fees, three codes to print on your marketing material and explain to confused customers.
For a bank, a school sending fee reminders, a broadcaster running a voting line or an organisation collecting donations, that fragmentation was a real operational cost with no benefit to anyone.
What Changes
Under the service-based model, one code attaches to the service and works across networks. A customer notification service can carry the same short code whether the recipient is on Safaricom or Airtel.
The new rules apply to newly assigned codes. Businesses holding existing operator-specific allocations will need to check the framework directly to understand what happens when their current contracts lapse, since the public notice covers the headline changes rather than the transition detail.
Why This Matters More Than It Sounds
Short codes look trivial from the consumer side. They are anything but on the infrastructure side.
The framework defines these numbering resources broadly, covering SMS, USSD, machine-to-machine communication and connected-device services. That matters in a market where USSD still carries an enormous share of everyday financial activity, particularly for customers on basic phones or without reliable data.
Kenya is also moving on adjacent fronts. The CA has opened consultation on proposed technical specifications for network equipment covering its type approval process, and is progressing work on procedures for deactivating and recycling inactive numbers, with a validation forum scheduled for 15 September.
Read together, it’s a regulator tidying up the plumbing that everything else in the digital economy runs on. Not the sort of announcement that trends, but the sort that quietly makes building things cheaper.
