Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA), has announced that charges for both on-net and off-net calls, will be at the same rate.

The move according to BOCRA is to control voice call tariffs, in the country.

BOCRA’s Director of Corporate Communications, Aaron Nyelesi, explained that with the move, a network’s package charge for on-net and off-net calls will be the same.

“Removal of off-net premium should not be understood to mean there is one calling rate applicable across all the three networks or that pre-paid and post-paid calls are charged at the same rate”, he said.

He added that in keeping up with their business models, network operators BTC, Mascom and Orange would continue to maintain different pricing structures.

He continued that, the charge for on-net and off-net calls would be the same within the same operator and same package.

This development follows the implementation of the Regulatory Directive No.1 of 2017 issued by BOCRA, which mandates operators to remove off-net premiums over a period of two years.

The first phase had termination rates for fixed calls, on June 1st, 2017.

Report by: Clara Doku