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Namibia and Botswana decided to slash the transnational mobile roaming charges. This initiative aims to streamline the establishment of the single digital market, aligning with the objectives of the Cost-Based Roaming Project.
Implementation of the new roaming rates is on 1 April 2024, regulators are to continue monitoring and evaluating the roaming project by, amongst other things, asserting demand elasticity, traffic volumes, and revenue impact on the operators, stated Botswana’s Minister of Communications, Knowledge, and Technology Thulagano Segokgo. He also explained that before the initial implementation, the joint committee created between the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (CRAN) and the Botswana Communications Authority (BOCRA) was tasked with data collection and analysis as well as drafting a report with the new proposed roaming rates which is expected to be completed by December 2023.
This report will be shared with the operators and stakeholders at a workshop in January 2024 for further input. Operators are to start preliminary negotiations based on the direction provided in the draft report through January 2024. It will then follow that operators would be allowed to make written submissions to the committee, which would be incorporated in the final report by the end of January 2024. The Regulators will then report to the Ministers in December 2023 and February 2024 on the implementation status.
Regulators are to issue directives to the operators on the implementation of reduced roaming rates by February 2024. CRAN and BOCRA are to facilitate negotiations where necessary and ensure timely implementation of the directive through March 2024.
According to Namibia’s ICT Minister Peya Mushelenga, the committee has agreed to adopt a benchmark approach similar to the one used in East Africa where roaming rates were used to determine what would constitute reasonable rates.
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The committee has informed operators of the impending change and has started with the data collection exercise, operators have until November 2023 to submit their data.
This comes as the communications Ministers of both countries met in August and decided to expedite the alignment of roaming fees throughout the SADC Region.
