KAMPALA, UGANDA – Cheaper regional call tariffs are coming down to Rwanda following the signing up of MTN Rwanda onto the region’s second seamless network last week.
The coming on board of Rwanda comes after mobile phone giants, Safaricom Kenya, MTN Uganda and Vodacom Tanzania launched a single regional mobile telephone network on February 1, 2007, the second in the region after Celtel’s.
In the partnership known as ‘Kama Kawaida’ in both Kenya and Tanzania and ‘MTN Home & Away’ in Uganda and Rwanda, subscribers while in Kenya or Uganda can now make calls when across the borders at local rates and receive free incoming calls.
Roaming partners using MTN Uganda and Safaricom Kenya will pay Rwf220 ($0.40) per minute. The cost for other East African networks will be Rwf295 ($0.50). Short message service (sms) to roaming partners and the rest of the world will cost Rwf130 ($0.23).
However, although the service is not yet available for MTN Rwanda and Vodacom Tanzania subscribers, there are ongiong high level talks between to two networks to roll out the seamless service.
Celtel launched the first ever such mobile telephone network in the world for Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania on September 27, 2006 before extending it to DR Congo, Gabon and Republic of Congo in June 2007.
Before the Home & Away tie up, MTN Rwanda subscribers while in Kenya or Uganda could only roam, while those who did not afford the roaming service were left with the option of buying a ‘home’ sim card or simply turning off their cell phones.
For example with the more established service in Uganda, while MTN Uganda subscribers were paying an average of Ush819 ($0.455) as roaming surcharges while in Kenya and Tanzania, they are now paying Ush550 ($0.313) to call Safaricom and Vodacom.
With Rwanda now on board, the falling tariffs will not only boost the business community and regular travellers across the region but will also open up an opportunity to further the common East African Community (EAC) vision of creating synergies that will ultimately spur economic and political development in the five nation strong bloc.
Before the seamless operation, MTN Rwanda’s over 450,000 customers had to visit MTN offices seven days before their intended trip to access the roaming service.
Safaricom (about 6 million customers), MTN (just under 2 million) and Vodacom (at slightly over the 3.5 million mark) have expressed interest in collaborating with networks in DR Congo and Burundi as individual companies for similar seamless operations.
