People in Central Africa could soon enjoy free roaming, allowing them to communicate freely between countries in the sub-region without any extra charges. A three-month deadline has been set for stakeholders to finalize the implementation of the community roaming project.

This decision came out of a meeting of telecom ministers from the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC) held last week in Bangui, Central African Republic. Participants discussed the barriers to the progress of this initiative, which aims to eliminate roaming cost disparities that lead to expensive communications, slowing the development of the telecommunications sector.

In November 2021, CEMAC countries signed bilateral agreements to implement Free Roaming. However, the project has been significantly delayed. In April 2024, the Central African Telecommunications Regulators Assembly (ARTAC) revealed that only two connections had been established out of the planned 213. These connections involve MTN Cameroon and MTN Congo on one hand, and Airtel Gabon and Orange Cameroon on the other.

While the exact obstacles to implementing Free Roaming have not been fully explained, ARTAC's goals for a 2024 seminar aimed at speeding up the process give us some clues. These challenges include delays in finalizing minutes and agreements, such as tariff agreements between regulators, late signing of interconnection and roaming contracts, possible technical and legal difficulties for the involved parties, the issue of separating roaming and international traffic on direct interconnection links, and the choice of technology to use for these connections.