To ease business across borders between the Northern Corridor member states (Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and South Sudan), the corridor heads of state identified the high cost of making calls across the borders and roaming charges as a barrier to trade.
Thus, they resolved that the cost of calls and roaming be lowered to the level of local (for particular countries) to make it possible for subscribers to do business across borders.
Regional telecoms regulators agreed and directed that all retail calling rates be capped at $0.10 with the inter operator tariffs capped at $0.07.
Further, they directed Mobile Terminating (MT) calls for those roaming within the region be zero rated, which means that one should receive calls for free. This is what is referred to as the One Network Area (ONA) arrangement.
Prior to that, the cost of making a call say to Rwanda and South Sudan from Uganda averaged at between Shs1,299, which is much higher than say calling the UK which averages at Shs300 or China at Shs200.
Today, all Ugandan operators have embraced the ONA arrangement with rates ranging from Shs320 to Shs360 for calling across the borders and Shs340 to Shs380 for making calls back home and within the region while roaming with mobile terminating calls rates at zero.
As operators, it is in our interest to see that the volume of calls in the region grows by a ratio as big as the one by which the unit rates have decreased for our revenues to be protected while our customers enjoy the well-priced calling rates.
For the ONA rates to be viable, as priority, operators need to be directly interconnected to avoid any extra cost of transiting calls.
Unfortunately, not all operators are interconnected in the region because of reasons such as limitation of infrastructure in terms of Optic fiber cables and Microwave links in markets such as South Sudan.
It’s therefore important that regulators in the region enforce direct interconnections or enforce transit at nominal fee for operators with a direct connection where another operator has none. This would make it possible for most subscribers in the Northern Corridor to benefit from the ONA arrangement.
However, for these benefits to be sustainable, there is need to check incidents of manipulation on the networks including the solving the challenge of SIM Box termination where International incoming calls are diverted from the official incoming routes to what is termed as grey routes.
With the reduced rates, this vice of SIM Box termination is bound to multiply tenfold because not only will local SIM cards be used but also foreign cards from within the region. While individual operators have invested in solutions to address this problem, the best solution should be one that is centralised for all operators.
While most operators are optimistic, there are some associated fears that need to be sorted.
Operators want a fair usage policy put in place to curb risks such as SIM Box fraud. They should also consider the option of regulating the consecutive number of days one is allowed to roam and receive calls for free or the maximum number of minutes one should receive for every visit across the border before they return home.
Putting such precautions in place and urgently, will guarantee the new ONA success and enable the Northern Corridor states to advance trade.
The writer is Uganda Telecom’s Lap Green Network group roaming, interconnection and international carriers’ director