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East Africa: Safaricom to End East African Roaming Charges Print E-mail
Wednesday, 24 January 2007
Safaricom is eliminating roaming charges for its subscribers using their phones in Uganda and Tanzania. Safaricom has partnered with MTN Uganda and Vodacom Tanzania to provide a joint network for subscribers within East Africa.

The network will be launched on February 1. Eric van Veen of MTN Uganda said his firm has already signed MOUs with Safaricom and Vodacom Tanzania. The partnership between MTN, Vodacom and Safaricom is intended to compete with Celtel, which operates in all three countries and in September 2006, launched its “One Network” no roaming charge service.

The elimination of roaming charges for competitive reasons in East Africa is not the only recent example of roaming charges falling without regulatory intervention. The EU has made widely publicized moves towards the regulation of roaming charges. In response to the threat of regulation, the GSM Association did a survey showing a 22% decline in the average cost of making or receiving a call when in another EU country since 2005.

Source: The East African Standard - WDR/Intelecon Regulatory News