Page 76 - SAMENA Trends - August-September 2025

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Liberia Moves Forward with Free Roaming Plans

The widely anticipated launch of free international roaming charges. Liberia also and The Gambia six months ago. It’s not
roaming between Liberia and Sierra Leone signed a memorandum of understanding clear when the deal with The Gambia will
seems to have begun, with a Liberia-Cote (MoU) with Côte d'Ivoire towards the be activated. It was due to start in early
d’Ivoire deal now much closer. Liberia and implementation of a similar initiative. This July. Commenting on the MoU, Clarence
Sierra Leone announced the rollout of an apparently followed a three-day conference K Massaquoi, Chairman of the Liberia
Economic Community of West African from 4-6 August. The conference was Telecommunications Authority (LTA),
States (ECOWAS)-inspired free roaming hosted by the Liberia Telecommunications highlighted the deep-rooted ties between
initiative, designed to ease cross-border Authority (LTA) which was joined by Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, noting that their
mobile roaming costs. Under the ECOWAS Sierra Leone's National Communications shared border, the longest Liberia has
initiative, citizens of both Liberia and Sierra Authority (NatCA) and officials from Côte with any neighboring state. Of course,
Leone can now use mobile services in d'Ivoire. As we reported at the time, Liberia where people share not only land but
each other's countries without incurring signed roaming deals with Sierra Leone culture, steep roaming fees have proved
inconvenient, especially as farmers,
traders, and transport operators often rely
on phone calls and mobile money services
to conduct cross-border business. This
deal could therefore be a massive boost
for trade – in border areas in particular.
However, it's not yet clear when the Liberia-
Côte d'Ivoire agreement will actually come
into effect. Mobile operators in Liberia and
Côte d'Ivoire have already begun technical
preparations to implement the new roaming
framework, which covers voice calls, text
messaging and data services. They will
also have to agree revenue-sharing models,
deal with service quality, and address
consumer protection.

Ncell Becomes Nepal’s First Mobile Operator to Offer Outbound VoLTE

International Roaming

Nepalese telecom operator Ncell has
announced it is the first mobile provider in
the country to launch outbound Voice over
Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) international
roaming services for its customers. This
follows its existing inbound VoLTE roaming
offerings for international visitors from
operators such as Bharti Airtel, Reliance
Jio, China Mobile, Ooredoo Kuwait, Mobily,
AT&T, and Viettel. Ncell has begun providing
outbound VoLTE roaming to its customers
traveling to India through a partnership with
Airtel, enabling high-definition voice calls
and high-speed data services abroad. The
company plans to extend outbound VoLTE
roaming to India’s other major operators,
Jio and Vodafone Idea, with testing China Mobile, China Unicom, Bell Canada, connectivity for international roamers
underway. Ncell is also conducting trials and Telus. In addition, Ncell is actively visiting Nepal.
with global operators including AT&T, working to expand its inbound VoLTE
T-Mobile, Verizon, Softbank, NTT Docomo, roaming partnerships to enhance

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