A while back, East African Community head of states signed an agreement dubbed “One Network”. The agreement stipulated that starting this
year, Telcos in member countries would take significant measures aimed at reducing roaming charges. Rwanda was the first to go live with the deal lowering the cost of calling for subscribers in other member countries.Kenyan Telco Safaricom lowered the costs of roaming for it’s subscribers in Rwanda by 60% taking the cost of calling to Kshs 10 from 25. Calls to Rwandan networks also lowered to Kshs. 10 from 17.50. Airtel also followed in effecting the changes setting the rates at Kshs 9 per minute down from Kshs 23 in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
In June, European law makers agreed to scrap off roaming charges across the continent. The changes expected to kick-in in June 2017 are being preceded by a cap on the charges at five cents per megabyte for mobile data, five cents per minute for calls and two cents per SMS message. This marked the most ambitious project aimed at harmonizing communication across a region in Globe.
In the same breath, South African Nations of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have agreed to a pilot aimed at lowering mobile roaming charges. The pilot set to commence in September is a brain child of Namibia government with mobile operators in the four nations expected to start the harmonization process which, will largely involve the amending of current roaming agreements. The member nations have also created a pathway to guide in the implementation of the project, which stipulates that wholesale and retail tariffs reduce on an annual basis. Mobile service operators are under no condition being forced to reduce the roaming charges with other member countries not involved in the project, but The Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN) invited other nations to join in the pilot.
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