BICS has joined the SMART Africa Alliance and is supporting its One Africa Network (OAN).
BICS has joined the SMART Africa Alliance and is supporting its One Africa Network (OAN). The project aims to reduce roaming charges among 30 participating African countries which represent over 750 million people.
“We are delighted to have BICS as a partner for our ongoing flagship project, the One Africa Network (OAN), as BICS is a major stakeholder in the value chain of what we are aiming to achieve namely free roaming for all Africans,” said Lacina Koné, director general of Smart Africa.
“We welcome this private sector-driven initiative, which reflects BICS’ commitment to supporting the ongoing free-roaming efforts, a flagship led by Smart Africa together with our regulatory authorities and Mobile Network Operators within Smart Africa member’s countries."
SMART Africa aims to accelerate sustainable socio-economic development on the continent as well as the knowledge economy on the continent through affordable access to broadband and the use of information and communications technologies.
As for the OAN project, it advocates free movement of people and ideas, boosting trade and fostering intracontinental growth. This will be enabled through affordable voice and data roaming rates and cross-border mobile payments, supporting millions of Africans within Smart Africa member states.
“We’re pleased to support SMART Africa in its mission to reduce roaming charges within the continent. BICS is a leading and neutral carrier, and already carries a significant proportion of voice, messaging and data roaming traffic within Africa,” said Daniel Kurgan, CEO of BICS.
“As such, and thanks to our turn-key ‘free-roaming’ solutions, we’re perfectly positioned to help our customers to roll out the new initiative affordably, and in a very short timeframe. This partnership shows our ongoing commitment to Africa, supporting our customers with state-of-the-art roaming, and anti-fraud solutions, and helping them to increase their roaming footprints.”
Leveraging BICS’ regional presence, comprised of subsea cables and five points of presence across south, east and west Africa, as well as by keeping voice and internet traffic in the local area it can deliver high-quality services at a cost-efficient price point.
