As the Rwandan market awaits Indian telecom giant, Bharti Airtel, to end the duopoly of MTN and Tigo, the national telecoms regulator, RURA, has instructed current operators to cut their interconnectivity fees in a multiphased approach.

Already, the current operators had reduced the charges from Rwf40 down to Rwf35 per minute, following a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC). 

Now RURA has asked them to cut the fees even further, first to Rwf33 (by January 2012), then to Rwf28 (by January 2013) and to Rwf22, a year later.

Officials expect the move to translate into lower individual call charges across the networks, which would, in turn, help accelerate mobile penetration in the country.

With about 4.2m Rwandans owning mobile phones already, the government is looking to meet its target of 6 million subscribers by the end of 2012.

Full story in the Business Magazine.