Roaming fees for mobile phone users in Southeast Asia making calls outside their own country could be cut by half early next year, a report citing a Malaysian minister said yesterday.
Energy, Water and Communications Minister Shaziman Abu Mansor said a reduction was necessary as charges were exceptionally high.
“We plan to reduce roaming charges with Singapore first,” he was quoted as saying by the Sunday Star newspaper.
Shaziman said his ASEAN counterparts had agreed to the plan during a meeting on Indonesia’s island of Bali last month.
“Reducing the roaming rates will also reduce the burden on the tens of thousands of Malaysians who commute to Singapore daily,” he said.
“We do not want them to be paying exceptionally high roaming charges when their workplace [Singapore] is only a few kilometers away from their homes in [neighboring] Johor,” he said.
Shaziman said his Singaporean counterpart, Lee Boon Yang, had hailed the proposal.
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