29 Jul 2014

There is no price control on mobile phone roaming between Botswana and South Africa, says the Minister of Transport and Communications, Mr Nonofo Molefhi.

He told Parliament on July 24 that this was so because Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) did not have jurisdiction over charges by operators in South Africa.

Answering a question in Parliament, he explained that facilitation of roaming between the two countries involved multiple entities which included at least two network operators and a clearing house that managed inter-operator records for roaming calls.

“The costs elements of roaming include at a minimum, inter-operator billing, billing of end customer, carrying of the call by the South African operator (s) and management of records by the clearing house.

All these components attract a cost, the major one being Inter Operator Tariffs, that is the tariff that the Botswana operator is charged by the South African operator (s) for carrying a call belonging to a Botswana subscriber,” said Mr Molefhi.

He said Botswana operators have to negotiate the Inter Operator Tariffs with the South African operators and BOCRA does not have jurisdiction over charges by operators outside Botswana.

He further said the other factor that makes the estimation of cost for roaming between operators a challenge to compute is the fact that Botswana operators cannot determine which network a customer would like to roam with in South Africa.

However, he explained that there was an on-going initiative by SADC ministers of ICT through Communications Regulators Association of Southern Africa (CRASA) to bring down price of roaming calls.

“It is expected that once the exercise by CRASA is completed in 2015, there would be coordinated regional effort by regulators in the respective countries to guide or impose price caps on prices charged by their operators,” he said.

He said prepaid clients are charged more than post-paid clients on call basis, but post-paid clients have monthly rentals that they have to pay which are not imposed on prepaid clients.

He said a study by CRASA that was done in 2012 on roaming charges in SADC region showed that the average indicative charges in the region was USD 0.08 per sms and USD 0.87 per minute of call. “Botswana operators are therefore charging lower tariffs than the average regional charge while on the other hand the charges for the sms are higher.

Shoshong MP Mr Phillip Makgalemele had asked the minister to state the average cost to mobile phone companies in facilitating the sending of one sms, making one local call and receiving one call whilst roaming in South Africa, both for prepaid and post paid clients, and how these charges compare regionally and internationally. ENDS