DOHA: The Communications Regulatory Authority (CRA) has coordinated the implementation of the third phase of the regulation on reducing the price caps for roaming charges within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, which has been implemented as of April 1, 2018.

This year the most significant decrease for consumers is the price cap for data roaming charges which have been reduced by 29.4 percent across the GCC and will further reduce in April each year until 2020.

In comparison to the last year’s price caps, this year has seen a reduction in the charges of receiving voice calls while in roaming by 21.4 percent (from QR1.019/min to QR0.801/min), making local voice calls within the visited country by 3.9 percent  (from QR0.910/min to QR0.874/min), and making voice calls to other GCC countries (including home country) by 3.2 percent (from QR2.257/min to qR2.184/min).

The roaming charges reduction also covered mobile data which has been reduced by 29.4 percent (from QR3.094/Mbyte to QR2.184/Mbyte), and sending SMS reduced by 14.5 percent (from QR0.255/SMS to QR0.218/SMS). Receiving SMS messages remains free.

It is worth mentioning that the prices caps are ceilings and the service providers are free to compete by setting prices below these regulatory caps to provide more attractive offers to the consumers.