RWANDA’s utilities regulator, (RURA) says it will delay the issuing of the fourth national telecoms operator’s license.
The announcement will likely please the three current operators, who have been jittery about another entrant after enormous investment in the sector.
The agency says the decision to license a fourth operator in this market would be a result of ongoing discussions with relevant stakeholders.
According to RURA’s director general, Regis Gatarayiha, the decision will have to be in line with other national policies and objectives “and as of now, such a decision has not been made yet,” he said.
“There is no delay in issuing out the license because there was no official announcement with a set deadline to license a fourth operator in Rwanda,” he added.
“It is true that RURA has been watching the telecom market performance in terms of subscriber growth as well as market share distribution between licensed operators,” Gatarayiha said.
Early last year, the regulator announced that it would offer a fourth mobile license in a bid to boost wireless penetration in the country.
The agency had further it would wait for Tigo to cover at least 500, 000 subscribers before it awarded another license to a fourth operator.
Currently Rwanda has three mobile operators, Rwandatel, MTN and Tigo with a combined 3.6 million subscribers, according to the September figures released by RURA.
Pioneer network, MTN, leads the market with 2.3 million subscribers while TIGO had 685,393 and Rwandatel 535,710 users. Tigo has surpassed Rwandatel within just one year of operation.
The government targets to have 6 million mobile users in 2015.
The regulator further says its previous announcement about interconnection fees was not about reducing interconnection charges but rather a review of the current regime in order to ensure cost-based interconnection rates.
Currently, the interconnection fee stands at Rwf40 per call, a fee that operators with a smaller market in the telecom industry view as overpriced.
“The expected cost-based interconnection rate will be a result of a comprehensive study that is currently being undertaken by RURA with the help of an expert firm in matters of interconnection costing through a consultative process that will involve all stakeholders including the licensed operators,” Gatarayiha said.
He added the regulator is expecting this review process not to take more than 90 days and intend to implement the recommendations of the study not later than end of June 2011.
The country is also planning to start SIM Card registration and Gatarayiha said that all operators are now preparing all necessary requirements to start the registering process.
“We will be announcing a clear timeline soon after we agree on the adopted approach to be adopted by all operators in order to complete this exercise before the end of this year,” he said.
