Comesa to abolish roaming charges

A subscriber makes a call. Africans paid on average 25 per cent of monthly gross national income per capita for mobile cellular calls compared to 11 per cent in other developing nations. FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

If this decision is signed and implemented, it will ease doing business in the region, Dorothy Nakaweesi writes.

Citizens in the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa) may soon enjoy reduced calling charges, courtesy of a decision taken by Ministers in charge of infrastructure.
Roaming is a service that allows subscribers outside the geographical coverage of their home network (country) to access voice, data and SMS services from other countries.

If this decision is signed and implemented, it will ease doing business in the region whose intra-trade has grown to the current $20.9 billion (Shs72 trillion) from $3 billion (Shs10 trillion) since the establishment of a Free Trade Area in 2000.
In their 10th meeting in Lusaka, Zambia last week, the ministers and government representatives from 15 of the 19 Comesa countries resolved to initiate action towards abolishing roaming charges levied on mobile calls.

The move is aimed at bringing down the price of information communication and technology services that remain high in Africa compared to other regions of the world.
According to the final report, the ministers observed: “Although the pricing of voice services in many African countries was becoming competitive and comparable with the rest of the world, the cost of broadband continued to be out of reach of most people.”

They noted that Africans paid on average 25 per cent of monthly gross national income per capita for mobile cellular calls compared to 11 per cent in other developing nations.
Experience
In Comesa region, studies have shown that Malawians use more than $12 (Shs43,440) a month on mobile phones, the minister noted.
“This is more than half of what an ordinary Malawian earns in a month which is very expensive,” the ministers noted.

There was a general concern on high mobile termination and roaming charges. They noted that although mobile phones had provided new sources of originating international traffic, it was also more expensive to terminate traffic on mobile networks.

The ministers urged Comesa member states to emulate other countries in Africa and beyond in coming up with reduced roaming and termination charges. They cited the East African Community which has eliminated roaming and termination charges and the European Union where mobile operators were no longer charging additional fees to their customers for using their phones anywhere else in the region.

“The ICT regulators are encouraged to carry out studies to reduce the interconnection rates and reduce or eliminate the roaming charges,” said the ministers.
“Member states are encouraged to invest into the Fibre Technology to The Home to increase capacity and provide excellent quality.”
The ministers observed that despite substantial investments in network infrastructure in the recent years, Africa lacked a robust network connectivity and high-quality, affordable Internet access.
They noted: “Comesa countries represent over 37 per cent of the internet users in Africa and Africa represents 7 per cent of the Internet world’s users. Hence, Comesa constitutes 2.5 per cent of the world’s population of the Internet users.

EAC
In East Africa, roaming charges were harmonised with Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda taking the mantle first in harmonising voice and SMS charges under the Northern Corridor Integration Project.
Burundi and Tanzania are yet to join the harmonisation.
Calls to Uganda and Rwanda networks currently cost flat rate of Shs350 per minute while calling Burundi and Tanzania is Shs1,050 and Shs875, respectively.