The cost of mobile telephone call costs in the East African Community have remained high and varying despite the introduction of the One Network Area (ONA) Initiative in 2014.
ONA was created to make mobile roaming across the EAC simple and affordable, by making the phone work as if it is within its “home country” even when the handler is moving from country to country, while incoming calls are free.
However, almost 12 years later, challenges remain that have made the initiative fail to achieve its overall objective of lowering the costs.
”Differences in rules, market practices and network readiness mean that roaming services still vary from one Partner State to another. These bottlenecks continue to create inconsistencies in the ONA experience across participating countries,” says a response from the EAC.
Policy Challenges
Policy and regulatory misalignments remain a major barrier to the seamless implementation of ONA. This leads to differences in national frameworks, pricing structures, and regulatory enforcement, which continue to slow progress toward a full harmonised regional roaming environment.
According to the Directorate of Infrastructure, key policy and regulatory challenges affecting the implementation of ONA include uneven application of roaming rules across the Partner States which reduces the predictability and quality of service for roamers.
Another challenge remains failure to harmonise pricing, meaning that home users calling roaming subscribers often pay full international rates while roamers receive free incoming calls, creating unfair costs, discouraging cross-border calls.
In some states, governments still control traffic gateways, yet mandatory routing through government-operated international gateways often increases costs. This is made worse by the differences in tax regimes on voice, SMS and data across countries, which complicate tariff harmonisation.
However, the private Sector players which often innovate in products to outdo their competitors, also make it hard to harmonise prices.
”Market dynamics and commercial incentives among operators and users also influence the effectiveness and sustainability of ONA,” says statement, adding that variations in pricing models, traffic flows, and competitive positioning create imbalances that can undermine fair participation and long-term adoption.
Some users take advantage of cheaper roaming options while others pay more, undermining trust in fairness and slowing overall adoption of ONA services.
The main market-related challenges shaping the ONA landscape include permanent roaming misuse involving long-term use of foreign SIMs which exploits lower roaming tariffs and abuses the ‘roamer’ status.
In addition, cost imbalances between operators, where differing tariffs and fees create an uneven playing field, discourage full participation in regional roaming.
Recently, the EAC with the help of the World Bank launched the Eastern Africa Regional Digital Integration Project (EARDIP), a series of projects aimed at advancing digital market integration in Eastern Africa by enhancing cross-border broadband connectivity, data flows and digital trade.
EARDIP is expected to take a comprehensive approach to strengthen the ONA initiative through development of a regional roaming framework. At the policy level, the project aims to develop a framework that harmonises rules on interconnection, roaming tariffs, quality of service and enforcement, creating a fair and predictable environment for operators while protecting consumers.
On the operational side, EARDIP aims to promote efficient cross-border call routing and interoperable billing and settlement systems, ensuring accurate charges, reducing inter-operator disputes and improving service reliability.
By addressing the policy, market and operational gaps, the proposed EAC Regional Roaming Framework, designed to reflect evolving technologies and market realities, is expected to make mobile communication across East Africa more seamless, affordable and reliable.
The framework is being enhanced to include, for example, data roaming caps of USD 0.005 (about UGX 18) per MB.
In the meantime, telecommunications services providers have instituted their own One Network Area initiatives where special bundles are offered to roaming users.
Regulators say that currently consumer awareness of ONA seems to be low, which has also led to its underutilisation.
“The message is simple, ONA must work for everyone, the trader crossing a border, the student studying abroad, and the operator investing in networks; closing the gaps in ONA will unlock vast opportunities,” says Julianne Mweheire, Director of Economic Regulation, Content and Consumer Affairs at Uganda Communications Commission.
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