Rwandans and citizens of 15 other countries comprising the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) could soon enjoy reduced calling rates when travelling across the region. This follows a decision taken by Ministers in charge of infrastructure on Wednesday this week to abolish roaming charges levied on calls. In their 10th meeting that took place in Lusaka, Zambia, October 3 – 4, 2017, 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 intended to bring down the price of information communication and technology services that remains high in Africa compared to other regions of the world. In final post-summit report by the ministers, they observed that although voice services in most member countries are becoming competitive, the cost of broadband continues to be expensive for a majority of citizens. “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,” the report read in part. They noted that Africans paid on average 25 per cent of monthly gross national income (GNI) per capita mobile cellular calls compared to 11 per cent in other developing nations. The ministers urged the COMESA member States to emulate other groupings in Africa and beyond in coming up with reduced roaming and termination charges. East African Community was cited as a model for the elimination of roaming and termination charges 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. Member States are encouraged to invest into the Fibre Technology to The Home (FTTH) to increase capacity and provide excellent quality,” the report read further. Despite substantial investments in network infrastructure in the recent years, Africa lacked a robust network connectivity and high-quality, affordable Internet access. Statistics indicate that COMESA countries represent over 37% of the internet users in Africa and Africa represents 7% of the internet world’s users. Hence, COMESA constitutes 2.5% of the world’s population of the internet users. The decision is binding to all the COMESA countries, and countries are expected to set up proper regulation to encourage investment in the operations to enhance competition and increase access. Rwanda has been championing such initiatives to reduce the cost of communication and consequently the cost of doing business among regional countries. In the East African region, the move has reduce the cost of communication especially for cross border traders and transporters and consequently driven up the traffic thus impacting revenue of telecom firms.
