The Southern African Telecommunications Association (Sata) plans to lobby regulators and mobile operators in Southern Africa to implement a flat data roaming fee for people travelling between countries in the region.
This is according to Telkom Group CEO Serame Taukobong, who spoke at the opening of the Sata 2025 conference held in Johannesburg on Tuesday. The multi-day conference, which includes delegates and industry stakeholders from South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia – among other Southern African Development Community (Sadc) member states – is running until Friday.
“Our first project is to create the Sadc borderless fibre network ecosystem. This will link up all 14 Sadc countries, from South Africa to Angola,” Taukobong told delegates in his opening address.
“Our second project is establishing a tier-4 regional data centre hub complemented by our Openserve fibre network, which will further advance our digital transformation efforts. The third initiative involves the implementation of the One Sadc roaming flat tariff, aimed at significantly enhancing cross-border communication and fostering deeper regional integration among Sadc member states.”
According to Taukobong, for a subscriber of one mobile network to be able to have continuous services in another Sadc country when travelling, operators must allow for uninterrupted access without having to acquire a local Sim at the destination.
The problem with this setup, Taukobong explained, is that data charges are “prohibitively expensive”, with travellers subjected to roaming fees that, in some instances, are 100 times what they would pay in their home country.
Bilateral agreements
Some Sadc member states, including Botswana and Namibia, have already signed bilateral agreements aimed at cutting call and data roaming costs by 60% to foster greater communication – and more economic activity – between the two countries. It’s expected that expanding such agreements across the entire Sadc would have a similar impact on intra-regional trade.
Telkom’s Openserve will take over the Sata presidency from Botswana’s BoFinet at the end of this week’s conference. The focus on slashing data roaming rates – and not so much call rates – aligns with Telkom Mobile’s strategy, which is premised on the idea that data is becoming the primary means of communication among mobile phone users.
Read: Telkom urges Icasa to scrap call termination fees completely
Sadc would not be the first regional block to cut roaming fees in this way. The EU has arguably taken the concept to its extreme via a “roam like at home” policy that allows Europeans travelling between countries in the EU bloc to be charged the same rates as in their home country.
The EU introduced legislation that gradually cut roaming fees as early as 2007, but it was only 10 years later, in June 2017, that roaming fees were scrapped entirely. EU regulators faced stiff opposition from the largest mobile operators in the region, including France’s Orange, Germany’s E-Plus, Sweden’s Comviq and others, which argued that slashing roaming fees would eat into their margins, forcing them to raise domestic prices or cut costs at the expense of infrastructure investment and jobs. Operators in the Sadc region are likely to have similar misgivings.
A 2023 study published in the International Journal of Industrial Organisation found that there was a correlation between the EU’s gradual cutting of roaming fees and the gradual decline in the average revenue per user (Arpu) of mobile operators in the region. The study also found that mobile operators in countries with higher tourism traffic were disproportionately affected by flat roaming fee regulations.
However, the “consumer surplus effect” – the tendency for customers to use a product more as it becomes cheaper – was found to have helped offset revenue declines.
“While the regulations have greatly benefited millions of travelling consumers in the EU, we assessed the impact of roaming regulation from its start in 2007 and found that it led to lower Arpus for mobile operators in the region,” said the report.
A Vodacom spokesman told TechCentral that while it’s not opposed to such an initiative, there are some practical challenges that will hinder its implementation.
“Unlike the EU, Sadc does not have the jurisdictional framework to enforce any sort of telecoms retail intervention on member states. Hence, participation would either be voluntary, or dependent on some sort of ‘moral persuasion’,” the spokesman said.
“There are other complications as well, like what will the rate be? Data rates in our markets differ, driven by numerous market forces. The proposed ‘flat rate’ could not be lower than the highest prepaid rate from the most expensive market,” said the spokesman.
Movement between Sadc countries is climbing. Aside from business travel and leisure tourism, many people in the region spend most of the year working outside of their home country, only visiting home during holidays such as Christmas and Easter.
Migration
According South Africa’s Border Management Authority, 1.1 million travellers passed through the nation’s 71 ports of entry in the 2024 Easter period, a 24% increase from the previous year’s numbers.
“Considering the level of population migration within Sadc, it is essential that operators establish a framework to empower users to be accessible and to access telecoms services seamlessly across borders. By removing unnecessary costs and establishing a framework that ensures affordable rates, we will be able to deepen digital access,” said Telkom’s Taukobong. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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