By Mabinty M. Kamara
Sierra Leone has joined seven other countries in West Africa to reduce network tariff on mobile phone roaming calls. This means that people who travel from Sierra Leone to other countries can make calls at local rate with their network.
For Sierra Leonean subscribers, the cost of roaming calls has been reduced in the following countries: Benin, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Senegal and Togo.
Officials of the country’s telecom regulatory body, National Telecommunication Commission (NATCOM) said the move will now remove the extra cost most people had to incur on calls whenever they travel across West Africa.
Abdul Ben Foday, Director of Corporate and Industry Affairs at NATCOM told Politico: “This means that you can now move from Sierra Leone and use your Orange and Africell line in any of these countries and be charged with the same local tariff as locals in that country.”
Prior to the advent of the free roaming, Sierra Leoneans who were making and receiving calls in Guinea, used to pay a total roaming fee of Le19, 672 from Orange Sierra Leone to Orange Guinea. The caller was charged Le 2,803 per minute and the receiver charged Le 17, 589 per minute.
With the introduction of the new system, the caller will only pay Le650 per minute whiles the receiver will not be charged.
Reception of roaming voice calls & SMS shall be free of charge within a maximum period of thirty (30) consecutive days or three hundred (300) minutes for every Sierra Leonean in each of the above-mentioned countries.
Foday told Politico that the other seven countries had started enjoying this service since 2017. He said talks were in advance stage to include countries like Liberia and Ghana to the system.
The new roaming system is expected to increase the volume of voice calls to Sierra Leone. Like many other countries, Sierra Leone is making less revenue compared to a decade ago on voice calls. Alternatively, data calls are cheaper and so many people prefer them.
NATCOM cannot take charges from data calls because they are yet to develop a full monetary mechanism to tap into that aspect of the telecoms revenue.
Away from West Africa, countries like Kenya, Rwanda and South Sudan have all benefitted from this system through increased volume traffic of voice calls.
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