Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has become home to the fourth Global System of Mobile Communication Roaming Exchange GRX in the world - first in Africa - after Amsterdam, Singapore and Washington.

The East African country's ICT Secretary, Kate Getao, launched the exchange this week with a view that mobile traffic originating from operators in Kenya and neighbouring countries will henceforth pass through the facility instead of any of those outside Africa.

The facility is expected to lower phone call roaming charges and provide high definition voice and video calling, she said.

Basically, the launched GRX will enable mobile networks around it to interconnect in the region for their roaming customers. This will enhance the end-user experience when using voice and data services, explains Michuki Mwangi, Senior Development Manager for the Internet Society's Africa Bureau.

"It is expected that as more African mobile networks connect to the GRX in Nairobi," he adds, "it will attract mobile operators from other regions such as the Middle East, Europe, Asia and beyond. This effect will offer better interconnection diversity for cross-network interconnection with respect to roaming on both data and voice services for African subscribers traveling to other regions and vice versa."

Getao had mentioned at the launch that the Kenyan GRX will connect with the other three and diversify players and revenue opportunities for GRX and Internet Protocol Exchange IPX providers to reduce costs for Mobile Network Operators in the region.

Mwangi added that this will benefit African mobile subscribers who roam when in other African countries because it will be a shift from depending on inter-mobile networks' interconnections which often take place at GRX points located outside Africa.

African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy, Elham Ibrahim, said the new facility will end the costly fees that are paid to carriers to exchange intra-continental traffic on behalf of African states which was a factor that made the AU intervene with grants used for the GRX and to increase the Internet exchange points in Africa from 18 to 32 over the past five years.

This increase in IXPs has a direct benefit and impact on African mobile data operators, says Mwangi, as they connect to these IXPs to offload locally-destined traffic and also access CDN networks and caches where locally available.

"The Internet Society study on IXPs in Nigeria and Kenya showed that mobile operators are able to realise cost savings while enhancing end user experience by connecting to local IXPs. We expect that as these new IXPs grow by having more networks and content available locally, they will positively impact on end user performance and access costs."