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Rwandan president pushes for scrapping of roaming charges in Africa

Xinhua, July 19, 2016 Adjust font size:

There is no need for Africans paying mobile phone roaming charges when travelling across the continent, Rwandan President Paul Kagame told delegates at the African Union Summit in Kigali on Monday.

Rwanda and Gabon on Monday launched a one area network, scrapping roaming charges among the two countries, and expected to bring down calling rates.

The initiative was launched by President Kagame and his Gabonese counterpart Ali Bongo as a side event of the AU summit, dubbed smart Africa luncheon.

"When integrating, why should one pay roaming charges when travelling to the next country? Of course we want to treat the integrated region as one area where you can be served without making it very expensive," said Kagame.

President Kagame noted that the one area network is compatible with integration agenda which can enable citizens to communicate cheaply.

"The one Area Network marks one step forward towards our goal of having a single digital market for Africa. I hope to see more of these launches to serve our citizens to communicate more cheaply," he said.

Gabon is among the several African states that previously agreed to implement the One Africa Network.

The decision, binding to 11 countries across Africa, was reached in April 2016, at a high level meeting of ICT ministers and Regulators convened under the Smart Africa Initiative, in Kigali.

The other countries include; Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Uganda, Senegal, South Sudan, Chad, Rwanda and Burkina Faso.

The implementation of the One Africa Network is supposed to see harmonization of tariffs on mobile voice calls, SMS and data transmission across the 11 countries.

International traffic among Smart Africa member countries is also meant to be tax exempt to bring down the calling charges.

The April ministers meeting also agreed on scraping charges incurred when receiving calls while roaming, thus someone could be only required to pay the domestic rates for making calls.

Implementation started in May. It follows a model of the One Network Area implemented by Northern Corridor of East Africa countries of Kenya, Uganda South Sudan and Rwanda.

The East African Community One Network Area began in October 2014, and has been credited for significant increase in traffic. Endit