Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to cut data roaming fees

As of the 1st of September we should see a change in the charges on data roaming rates when roaming in any of the countries Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana or Namibia.

Officials from the information and technology authorities in all 4 countries met in Windhoek to discuss the cost-lowering project.

According to a report in Telecompaper, the Communications Regulatory Authority of Namibia (Cran) said ‘the operators will not be forced to go into reduced tariff agreements with operators in countries that are not participating in the pilot project. However, other member states wishing to participate in the project prior to 01 October are welcome to do so, and mobile operators should engage their respective mobile roaming partners to ensure their participation’.

For this project to be a success the 4 countries will continue to communicate and hopefully encourage the mobile operators to reduce their tariffs further for roaming subscribers in the region. The report also states that a recommendation will be made to the Communications Regulators’ Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) to have a regional clearing house where lower tariffs are regulated in the entire southern African region.

We all know/hear of how expensive it data roaming is when we or others we know travel so is so this is great news, if effected, isn’t it?