Namibia and Botswana have agreed to slash roaming charges between the countries by April next year.
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.
The 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 to continue monitoring and evaluating the roaming project by, amongst other things, asserting demand elasticity, traffic volumes and revenue impact on the operators,” Botswana’s Minister of Communications, Knowledge and Technology Thulagano Segokgo said.
Minister Segokgo 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) is 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.
“The report will be shared with the operators and stakeholders at a workshop in January 2024 for further input. Operators to start preliminary negotiations based on the direction provided in the draft report through January 2024,” Segokgo explained.
It will then follow that operators would be given an opportunity 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 to issue directives to the operators on 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,” he said.
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.
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.
