Cellphone costs cut

[d7e7r7]

Good news is that cellphone costs are going down ... bad news is petrol prices are going up

http://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/business/2010/10/29/cellphone-costs-cut

Telephone regulator Icasa says it will force mobile phone companies to cut charges for handling calls from other providers

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa has announced it will reduce the mobile termination rate for peak times to 73 cents per minute by March 2011, from 89 cents now.

The cost for off-peak times will be cut to 65 cents per minute, from 77 cents now.

The regulator said it aims to cut the fee for both peak and off-peak times to 40 cents by March 2013.

Icasa Councillor Thabo Makhakhe said the regulator will watch trends in the retail market closely, to "ensure that there is a fair distribution of total social welfare" between operators and consumers.

In October South Africa's largest cellphone operator, Vodacom (VODJ.J), warned that a dramatic reduction of cellphone charges would be disruptive to the country's economy amd communications sector.

Vodacom and its rival MTN (MTNJ.J), which is South Africa’s No.2 biggest operator and Africa's largest mobile operator, stand to lose billions of rand from the lower fees..

Vodacom's interconnection revenue dropped by 3,9% to 8,7 billion rand ($1,24 billion) in 2010, due to a 33,2% reduction in mobile interconect revenue in its international operations.

 

[genetic]

Seems like ICASA is at least doing something right!

 

[TonyHawk]

for a change... they should be fined for overcharging & colluding ... in the first place

 

[Shake&Bake]

The rate is still too high and consumers will not see any significant reductions because of this.

 

[mak2000]

I think the biggest change will come if ICASA sets the maximum period of a cellphone contract to be 1 year instead of 2 and 3 years(in some deals). This will let provide subscribers option to change networks frequently and thus keep the Operators on their toes in terms of pricing.

 

[Shake&Bake]

I think the biggest change will come if ICASA sets the maximum period of a cellphone contract to be 1 year instead of 2 and 3 years(in some deals). This will let provide subscribers option to change networks frequently and thus keep the Operators on their toes in terms of pricing.

+1

iirc they have 6 month contracts in the UK as well.

 

[killadoob]

Why do they have a plan to cut it by 40% by 2013 why not just do it once off? why is there such a long plan?

That may possibly be a stupid question but anyhow .

 

[Rands]

Ja, give the voters something small (lower cell costs) then take something bigger (higher petrol costs), nice.
Dont even start with ICASA, i mean lowering the cost of cellphone calls is nice, but its like giving out sweeties. They should rather be applying thier minds to making real differences :
- open up the cellular market, let more international companies in.
- break Telkoms hold on everyting that can transmit or recieve a signal
- make the ADSL more accessable, dont rely on MWEB to innovate, they are a business, not the regulator.
- make Telkom pay more attention to infrastructure ( no more 'unavailable pots, broken cables etc.)