The EAC Wants Easier Mobile Roaming, but Telecom Economics Still Get in the Way

Efforts to lower mobile roaming costs across East Africa are moving back into regulatory negotiations as governments and telecom authorities try to reconcile regional integration targets with the economics of telecom revenue collection.

Officials meeting in Dar es Salaam this week under the East African Community’s telecommunications committee are reviewing a draft regional roaming framework intended to standardise how operators handle international mobile traffic inside the bloc. The discussions come more than a decade after the first formal push for coordinated roaming arrangements in the region.

The politics around roaming have changed since those earlier talks.

Telecom usage across East Africa now leans heavily on mobile data, financial apps, digital trade platforms and mobile money systems that operate across borders even when pricing structures do not. Regulators involved in the current discussions say older roaming arrangements no longer match how subscribers actually use networks while travelling between member states.

The EAC’s internal study on roaming implementation identified commercial and regulatory inconsistencies between countries, including tax differences, interconnection pricing disputes and varying enforcement practices. Fraud exposure and uneven service quality were also cited during the review process.

For operators, roaming revenue still carries weight in markets where average consumer spending remains relatively low.

That leaves regulators attempting to reduce costs without sharply weakening telecom margins or state tax receipts tied to the sector. Several East African governments rely heavily on excise duties, spectrum fees and transaction taxes linked to mobile communications and digital finance activity.

Data traffic has complicated the situation further.

Earlier roaming arrangements across parts of East Africa focused primarily on voice and SMS interoperability. The current policy discussions are increasingly centred on data affordability. Regional officials involved in the process say existing structures have struggled to accommodate rising demand for cloud services, e-commerce transactions, mobile payments and platform-based business activity.

The EAC’s broader digital market programme depends heavily on those services functioning across borders without major pricing penalties.

Some operators inside the region already participate in bilateral or limited roaming partnerships that lower costs between specific markets. A fully harmonised regional framework remains more difficult. The bloc now includes countries with sharply different telecom market structures, varying infrastructure quality and uneven regulatory capacity.

In some markets, operators remain dominant national infrastructure providers with substantial influence over pricing negotiations. Elsewhere, regulators have pushed more aggressively for interoperability and retail price reductions.

The draft framework under discussion includes proposals around consumer protection standards, compliance enforcement and cost-based tariff models. Officials also want more consistent quality-of-service rules across participating countries.

Cross-border traders, transport companies and regional businesses remain among the groups most exposed to current roaming costs. Informal trade routes across East Africa often depend on continuous mobile connectivity for payments, logistics coordination and inventory movement.

Regional telecom integration has advanced in other areas during the past several years, including fibre expansion, mobile money growth and digital infrastructure investment. Roaming reform has moved more slowly.

The commercial incentives are harder to align.

Go to TECHTRENDSKE.co.ke for more tech and business news from the African continent and across the world. 

Follow us on WhatsApp, Telegram, Twitter, and Facebook, or subscribe to our weekly newsletter to ensure you don’t miss out on any future updates. Send tips to editorial@techtrendsmedia.co.ke