A while back, East African Community head of states signed an agreement dubbed “One Network”. The agreement stipulated that starting this year, Telcos in member countries would take significant measures aimed at reducing roaming charges. Telcos such as Airtel took up the call and reduced roaming charges not only in the East African region but across 16 countries. The One Network initiative envisages the reduction of International and roaming tariffs to lower costs of doing business as well as deepening social integration in East Africa.
In line with this agreement, Telkom Kenya has introduced new roaming voice and SMS rates with the introduction of a new bundle dubbed Mashariki. With the new bundles, customers who use Kshs. 1000 get 70 minutes with 120 SMSs or upto 130 minutes upon conversion of SMSs to minutes or up to 260 SMSs upon conversion of minutes to SMSs. For every KSh 500 used, a customer gets 30 minutes with 70 SMSs or up to 65 minutes upon conversion of SMSs to minutes or upto 130 SMSs upon conversion of minutes to SMS.
Orange customers can subscribe to the bundle by dialing *123# ad selecting option 1 for voice and SMS bundles then menu 5 for roaming bundles. The bundle applies to pre-paid Orange Kenya customers while roaming in Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan and for traffic destined only within the visited country. The bundle will be valid for 14 days from the date of purchase, after which a customer will forfeit any unutilised minutes or SMSs.
