No more roaming fees with Safricom in Rwanda!

Safricom Kenya just announced that it will extend it's network to Rwanda. This is important because there are expensive roaming fees when you cross to another country or territory. I think in the next few years you will see reciprocal agreements between several carriers in the developing world.


From AfricaNews

The Kenyan mobile phone firm said it was still consulting with other African players in DR Congo, Mozambique and South Africa to extend the network to the Southern Africa region, but this would depend on the cost of connection.

Safaricom Chief Executive Officer Michael Joseph said the service would allow some 600,000 MTN Rwanda subscribers to use the service. The deal makes Rwanda the third East African country to join the borderless network.

Uganda and Tanzania became the first two East African states to join the one-area network, which allows the subscribers to use mobile phone re-charge vouchers from any of the networks. The service would be activated

MTN: mobile subscriber growth grows in Africa

MTN has been on an acquisition binge the past few years. Last year MTN bought Areeba's operation in Ghana, and West Africa. Now MTN has reported that its number of subscribers rose by 90% to 48.2 million due to its $5.5bn purchase of INVESTCOM. Revenue also jumped by 69% to R34bn for the half-year to June 2007 while core operations extended their revenue by 35%. Most of the firm's profit is sourced in South African and Nigeria, but the firm is looking towards the Middle East for further expansion opportunities.

More from CNBC Africa

Building big, starting small by Ethan Zuckerman

A radical new way for poor countries to get the phones, power, and roads they need

By Ethan Zuckerman | August 5, 2007

IN 1997, IN the midst of a vicious civil war that was tearing apart the Democratic Republic of Congo, entrepreneur Alieu Conteh decided it was time to build the country's first mobile-phone network.

The odds were stacked against him: He couldn't get equipment or loans. The handsets cost too much. He hired welders to build towers, one by one, out of scrap metal.

Now his phone network is the most important piece of infrastructure in the country, the only way most Congolese can communicate with their neighbors and with the wider world. Conteh's company, CWN, grew into Vodacom Congo, with 3 million mobile phone users and a market valuation of $1.6 billion.