High tariffs are good for the poor: MTN exec

What I don't understand is if they justify their prices by blaming high interconnect fees why are on-net calls only marginally cheaper?
 
AmaDownload said:
SuperSunBird: It's basically that high interconnect fees incentive operators to establish themselves in otherwise unprofitable geographical areas (low LSM, no teledentity). Without an interconnection-charge USALs would not be feasible either. Since the government decided on licensing USALs, they will most surely not decide on dropping interconnect fees. Or cause some havoc :-)

Eish
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Not sure about USALs but I think one of the main selling points of cellphone operators is coverage in large areas, and I mean their selling points to business people / high income consumers, not just the poor. People would find their cellphones a lot less useful if as soon as they left a major metropolitcan area they lost coverage. Especially in SA where they've been marketed partly as a security tool to be able to stay in contact etc. The fact is they'd have a lot less of a market overall if they didn't hae coverage in the "poor", "rural" areas. This is just a transparent attempt to justify high interconnect fees, the sort of thing that'll go down well with govt/ICASA too.
 
IMHO The only people who benefit from the high interconnection fees are the fat cats, the shareholders, those who erect really expensive buildings, and "executives" of aforementioned. The poor reach a point when operating things like celery phones becomes unaffordable and then the phone becomes a really handy thing to sell to cash converters. Naturally with high fees this happens sooner than later and voila... another customer is lost. Oh well, that doesnt affect the suits in the fancy German cars who live in lala land.
 
Eish. Excuses these blokes in telcos think up are very interesting. Perfect material for a good documentary.
 
AmaDownload said:
Reese: there is a telecom tax charged to all operators (except USALs) by ICASA :-)

SuperSunBird: It's basically that high interconnect fees incentive operators to establish themselves in otherwise unprofitable geographical areas (low LSM, no teledentity). Without an interconnection-charge USALs would not be feasible either. Since the government decided on licensing USALs, they will most surely not decide on dropping interconnect fees. Or cause some havoc :-)

Eish
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I dnt agree with you if dropping the rates makes the service cheaper to use more people will use it as I said less profit per call but more call volume and this being south africa everyone will jump to the vendor supplying the same service as others but at cheaper rates. I'm so carefull making calls because I budget what I can spend every month. If it were cheaper I'd spend the same amount of money but will be getting more usage. Make sense ?
 
Yes it's all about milking the previously advantaged to feed the presently advantaged. Otherwise known as 'milking whitey'.
I just hope they actually spend some of that money on providing access & infrastructure to the poor.
 
Skeptik said:
Yes it's all about milking the previously advantaged to feed the presently advantaged. Otherwise known as 'milking whitey'.
I just hope they actually spend some of that money on providing access & infrastructure to the poor.
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they do, poor Mbeki had to buy himself a new jet
 
... and we seem to have an endless supply of those.

Bone-headed, and corrupt - intellectually - if not morally and fiscally.

:eek:
 
Gunny said:
I dnt agree with you if dropping the rates makes the service cheaper to use more people will use it as I said less profit per call but more call volume and this being south africa everyone will jump to the vendor supplying the same service as others but at cheaper rates. I'm so carefull making calls because I budget what I can spend every month. If it were cheaper I'd spend the same amount of money but will be getting more usage. Make sense ?
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Agreed. And additional to your profile, there are many more types of customers that use mobile phones for different purposes, and in different ways, that would probably prove my initial point. It's about what the millions of people do..
 
Without information on the level of availability of other forms of telecommunication in India the comparison is meaningless. What is the cellphone coverage like in India? Is it really good, but landlines are easy and cheaper to get so poor people use them instead?

If MTN is making R1 billion on interconnect fees, what are Vodacom and Cell C making? Is this profit mostly coming out of the pockets of poor cellphone users?
 
How can chargering someone who doesn't have a lot help?! stupid ! aaa but wait mtn just protecting their cash cow right?
 
Suddenly I feel very bad about having an MTN contract. In fact I feel ashamed. I believe I will try to switch after the first opportunity. To think MTN is taking over Africa! I am not poor, but I'm just waiting for Yebo Dafur War, Yello' Summa Genocide and other things - if you ask me now, I will say the chance of MTN sponsoring a war on African soil for their economic advantage is 9 out of 10.

This is a very colonial attitude they are taking. Instead of exploiting people for physical goods (e.g. gold) we seem to be at a stage were people are exploited for services. Why don't we just ask the IMF to deposit all loans to Africa directly into MTN's bank account?

I think this guy should go to jail and MTN should be fined. And we now have for the first time on record: MTN's tariffs are high! This guy said it! They are expensive. ICASA should just apply the following formulae allowed telecoms tariffs : =CostAt2006* ( e^( - (A6-CurrentYear)) +0.1).
 
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