One of the Communication Authority of Kenya’s (CA) mandate is to police the ICT industry in the country and give the public an overview (which is very long for some people to read through) about the sector in a language that can be understood by you and me. Of course, the CA has delivered, and its latest report is live on its website. You can grab a pdf copy from here.
It totally makes sense if the stats are too many for you to go through exhaustively, which is why we are here to make things somewhat easy for you – like enticing your eyeballs with friendly tables and graphs and, as well as summarized prose because you are busy people.
According to the ICT watchdog’s stats, it is apparent that the volume of roaming-out traffic is primarily concentrated in the East Africa region. Out of 38.5 million minutes of voice roaming traffic, East Africa cannibalized the traffic with 33.6 million minutes.
The number of text messages sent out was 9.6 million, coupled with 4.2 million MB (about 4101 GB) that was consumed by outbound roamers on data services front.
On the other hand, roaming-in voice traffic stood at 32.3 million minutes and similar to roaming-out numbers, traffic from East Africa country was highest at 87.1%. Incoming text messages were fewer than outbound ones at 5.9 million messages, but inbound data was three times higher than roaming in data at 13.5 million MB.
Here is where things get interesting; Uganda registered the highest number of outgoing voice traffic at 22,817,689 minutes. In like manner, the East African country recorded the highest amount of outgoing SMS and data at 4,079, 850 SMS and 1,001,044 MB for the period under scrutiny. The numbers take the same trend for incoming data, voice and SMS traffic. The Magufuli-headed state and South Sudan come in second and third for outgoing voice. Burundi has little love on both fronts as it sits at the bottom.
Another notable point is that roaming in data from South Sudan is nil. Nada.
We already covered roaming charges a few weeks ago, but here is a recap; roaming with Safaricom in East African countries (Rwanda and South Sudan are included) will cost you KES 10 per minute. Airtel Kenya charges KES 9 for incoming and outgoing calls. SMS and data (per MB) cost KES 6 and KES 10 respectively – if your roaming partner is Airtel Uganda and MTN Uganda.
You can find more information on roaming charges per operator here.
