Christian Laruelle, regional sales director for SAP Mobile Services, has said it is important for Africa to provide efficient LTE roaming services because it could easily tap into ready-made revenue.
Laruelle pointed to the growing tourism market on the continent, with visitors eager to be able to connect to the web from their devices.
South Africa, as the number one tourism destination in Africa, had around 9.2 million visitors in 2012, with the UK forming the biggest proportion of that. Tourism and travel contributes 9.8 per cent of South Africa’s GDP.
Laruelle said: “It is a great opportunity to drive broadband and to capture roaming revenue from tourists.”
He added that 63 per cent of global mobile network operators surveyed said an IPX for LTE roaming was essential in the next one to three years.
In the European Union, there will be no roaming fees within the economic block by the end of 2015 and a similar idea has been suggested for Africa.
