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Johannesburg - The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on Thursday finalised interconnection and call termination regulations, delivering a much-needed fillip to consumers.
In delivering its stipulations, Icasa said competition was lacking in South African telecommunications, and that more transparency was required.
In terms of the new regulations, mobile interconnect rates must be reduced to R0.65 per call by July 2010 and decrease to R0.50 by July 2011, and to R0.40 a year later. For fixed lines, the termination rate must be reduced to R0.15, R0.12 and R0.10 over the same milestones.
The regulation also identifies two separate groups of telecommunications companies: SMP licensees (which includes all players offering call termination services) and established SMP licensees (which includes Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Telkom).
The regulation requires smaller players to incorporate the same interconnection fees as established companies.
According to Icasa, failures in the telecommunications sector so far included "Lack of sufficient access networks, lack of transparency, discrimination concerns and pricing,".
'You've aced it'
Said Icasa councillor, Thabo Makhane: "Remedies to these problems must be proportionate to the scale of the market failure".
MTN, Vodacom and Telkom were expected to comply with more intrusive rules in the future, both in terms of the rates to which they must comply and their own accounting.
They will also be required to provide Icasa with information as to how they cross-subsidise their tariffs.
"All licensees are to submit relevant market data on a biannual basis so that Icasa can monitor trends in the market," said Makhane. He added that this would also encourage transparency.
"We expect the fixed-to-mobile retail call rate to decrease as mobile termination rates are reduced. We also encourage a 100% pass-through in charges from fixed to mobile phone calls and will monitor this vigilantly," said Makhane.
"You've aced it," said John Holdsworth, CEO of ECN Telecommunications on Icasa's new cost regulations.
The regulations will be made publicly available on Friday, and will also be gazetted in parliament.
- Fin24.com