Nigeria is not a part of the free roaming zone of West Africa which includes its latest entrant Benin Republic. Other members of the zone are Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone, Togo and Senegal.
The benefit of the zone is that mobile subscribers in the region will benefit from the cap of the free reception of calls to 300 minutes per month during 30 days. Free delivery is expected by 2020. With free roaming, Beninese on the move will also benefit from billing outgoing calls at local rates.
On December 12, 2017, Benin decided to become a member of the “free-roaming” zone of West Africa, operational since March 30, 2017. Under the supervision of the Ministry of Digital Economy Hervé Coovi Guedegbe, Executive Secretary of the Regulatory Authority for Electronic Communications and Posts (Arcep) of Benin, had signed for this purpose, the Memorandum of Understanding on the Basic Principles for the Implementation of “Free Roaming “in West Africa with Abdou Karim Sall, the Director General of the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Posts (Artp) of Senegal.
The project “free roaming” was initiated by Senegal on November 28, 2016. The country, tired of waiting for the big administrative machine of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) overcomes all procedural obstacles which slow down the effective implementation of free roaming throughout the sub-region, had decided to embark with countries that think like him.
