The East African Community (EAC) is seeking approval of revised regional roaming regulations that could lower the cost of cross-border calls and data services, as telecommunications operators call for solutions to high interconnection costs, foreign exchange losses and infrastructure challenges.
The proposed Enhanced EAC Regional Roaming Regulation, 2026, is awaiting approval by the EAC Council of Ministers and seeks to update the One Network Area (ONA) framework introduced in 2014, to reflect changes in the telecommunications market and strengthen regional digital connectivity.
The proposals were discussed on Tuesday during an oversight meeting convened by the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) at a Nairobi hotel, where representatives from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy and telecommunications operators outlined progress in implementing the framework and barriers to its full adoption.
Bashir Dawe Sode, an ICT and performance management professional, said six of the eight EAC Partner States — Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan — had implemented the ONA framework, while the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Somalia were yet to do so.
He said both countries had formally committed to aligning their domestic regulations with the regional framework.
Sode said the framework had helped reduce cross-border communication costs and supported regional integration and business activities. However, its effectiveness had been affected by differing interpretations among Partner States, uneven regulatory oversight and outdated charging structures that did not reflect modern mobile data usage.
“Since then, it is 12 years. So, it has to reflect the current market prices,” he said, explaining the need to review the framework.
Under the proposed regulations, retail voice roaming charges would be capped at 5.9 US cents per minute, down from the existing 10 US cents, while wholesale voice charges would fall from seven US cents to 4.25 US cents per minute.
The enhanced framework also proposes per-second billing without call-setup fees, wholesale data charges of US$1.65 per gigabyte and retail data charges of US$2.72 per gigabyte. Wholesale SMS charges would be set at 1.5 US cents per message, while retail SMS charges would remain at 2.7 US cents.
The revised rates will only take effect after approval by the Council of Ministers.
Sode identified foreign exchange instability, varying mobile termination rates, inadvertent roaming caused by cross-border signal spillover, SIM-box fraud and permanent roaming as some of the challenges affecting implementation.
He urged EALA to support expedited approval of the revised regulation, saying it would strengthen enforcement of the regional framework.
“The EAC Committee should urge the EAC Council of Ministers to grant final approval to the Enhanced EAC Regional Roaming Regulation, 2026, to transform the voluntary guidelines into enforceable regional law,” he said.
Sode recommended establishing a Regional Roaming Implementation Task Force to coordinate compliance and a regional clearinghouse to manage traffic settlements and reduce foreign exchange-related costs.
Other proposals included harmonising ICT-related taxes and customs tariffs and providing technical assistance to DRC and Somalia to facilitate their integration into the framework.
Safaricom Senior Manager for Regulatory and Public Policy Anthony Kamwaro said high international termination rates continued to make communication within the region expensive.
“Why is it cheaper to call China or the US from East Africa than within the block?” he asked.
Kamwaro said the disparity in international termination rates affected the cost of carrying calls across borders, calling for measures to make regional communication more competitive.
He also highlighted changing consumer behaviour, noting that subscribers increasingly relied on internet-based applications rather than conventional voice calls when travelling within the region.
“You will come into Kenya, receive a phone call and not call back. And if you call back, you will call back using WhatsApp,” he said.
Kamwaro explained that operators continued to incur signaling, IPX and international network costs when terminating calls, even as customers shifted towards internet-based communication.
He called for a regional clearinghouse to address foreign exchange losses arising from roaming settlements, which are often made in US dollars while operators collect revenue in local currencies.
“Most operators, when they are roaming or clearing calls within East Africa, are clearing them in US dollars, and they are charging at their local foreign exchange rates. So you are being hit on foreign exchange losses,” he said.
Kamwaro further advocated direct interconnection between operators, arguing that routing calls through intermediary carriers increases termination costs.
“When you do ONA, always make sure that you do a direct connection. If you go through carriers, definitely the cost of terminating the call becomes more expensive,” he said.
Meanwhile, Jamii Telecommunications Limited (JTL) representative Eric Ouko said the company had international roaming agreements with other operators but had not yet implemented regional roaming under the EAC ONA framework.
He cited differences in network technologies, particularly the challenge of integrating 4G networks with partner networks still operating on 2G and 3G, as a technical barrier that would need to be addressed.
Ouko said JTL would also need to assess how the proposed roaming rates could be incorporated into its commercial strategy, noting that the company offered low-cost voice and data services in the local market.
He raised concerns over the growing use of over-the-top (OTT) platforms such as WhatsApp and Telegram, saying operators providing data connectivity could not readily provide statistics on calls carried through those applications.
“As an Operator, we are not able to provide statistics towards calls from, let's say, Kenya to Tanzania, Kenya to Uganda or Kenya to any destination on the OTTs, because for us, what we only provide is the data connectivity,” he said.
Ouko also raised concerns about cybersecurity oversight of communications carried through such platforms and said JTL supported bilateral agreements to facilitate traffic exchange with regional partners.
The proposed framework is expected to strengthen regional cooperation and make cross-border communication more affordable. Its implementation, however, remains dependent on approval by the EAC Council of Ministers and effective coordination among Partner States and telecommunications operators.
