NAIROBI, March 2 (Xinhua) -- Africa's trading blocs on Thursday began a two-day meeting in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi to discuss ways of implementing a single mobile area network.
The event brought together the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to review ways of reducing the cost of making telephone calls within and across the economic blocs.
In his opening remarks, Jean-Baptiste Mutabazi, director of Infrastructure and Logistics at the COMESA, said the cost of telecommunications remains very high across and within the continent's regional economic communities.
"Our goal is that we have one area mobile network across the trading blocs so that consumers can call using local tariffs," Mutabazi said, revealing that each regional economic community will implement a single area network which then merges to form a single African mobile area network.
Ally Simba, executive secretary of the East African Communications Organization, said the regional bloc has already achieved progress in rolling out a single-area mobile network. So far, four out of the seven member states of the EAC are part of a regional area network.
Rosemary Mapolao Mokoena, director of Infrastructure at the Southern African Development Community, said high mobile roaming charges are a hindrance to cross-border electronic communications.
Mokoena said a single African mobile area network will benefit consumers because it eliminates the need to buy new mobile sim cards each time an individual crosses into a neighboring African country.
John Tanui, principal secretary at Kenya's State Department for Information Communication and Technology and Digital Economy, said a single African mobile area network will catalyze regional integration by reducing the cost of making voice calls in the continent. ■