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Johannesburg - South Africa's mobile phone firms are facing another battle with regulators after the country's competition commission said on Thursday it would investigate possible collusion over prices in the industry.
"We've got three cases that we are investigating (in the mobile phone industry), but they deal with the same issue," Nandi Mokoena, Competition Commissions' manager of strategy and stakeholder relations, told Reuters on Thursday in a telephone interview.
"The allegations are that cellular phone companies have agreed on the rates they charge."
Mokoena said mobile phone operators - MTN and Cell C - have been notified about the probe.
Meanwhile, the South African government on Tuesday and Wednesday held public hearings, as part of plans to push mobile and telecom operators to reduce interconnection fees, in an attempt to lower telecoms costs that have impacted the country's growth.
On Tuesday, the government ordered a cut in mobile phone charges by the end of November, saying it had been forced to act because the communications regulator would not do so.
Siphiwe Nyanda, Minister of Communications, directed the regulator to lower interconnection rates, a charge to transfer calls to rival networks. It gave no details.
The committee has proposed interconnection rates should be cut to 60c per minute during peak times by November and then by a further 15c annually until 2012. Operators currently charge each other R1.25 per minute during peak times.
- Reuters