Little consumer benefit from interconnect rate cut

Although it's hardly anything, a little bit of money back in the consumers pocket is better than nothing at all.
 
Until the cartel is broken, the Competition Commission and ICASA are taken seriously I, as a male, have got more chance of falling pregnant, that of these cell phone giants playing fair.
 
MTR cut not that bad

I would have like to see the MTR cut further... to zero perhaps. Nevertheless, I believe that the market has seen much better prepaid offerings emerge (e.g. Cell C's R1,50 option for all networks, all day). The business customer on a contract cannot easily switch providers because RICA has made mobile number portability nearly impossible, so these are the last curstomers for which I expect to see a drop in the prices.

Don't blame the cartel but rather your politicians who established it and are maintaining it.
 
it's easy - stop using contracts and just buy your phone. It's not "free" anyway. That way you can shop around for the best "pay as you go" rates, which are much cheaper than contracts, as they do actually decrease with interconnect rates (unless your name is Vodascum).
Ask yourself, why would cell phone companies decrease contract rates when they can just make more money off you because you're locked in?
 
Johnfpro said:
Until the cartel is broken, the Competition Commission and ICASA are taken seriously I, as a male, have got more chance of falling pregnant, that of these cell phone giants playing fair.
Click to expand...

Ain't that the truth
 
Johnfpro said:
Until the cartel is broken, the Competition Commission and ICASA are taken seriously I, as a male, have got more chance of falling pregnant, that of these cell phone giants playing fair.
Click to expand...

The extra cash has become too meaningful and is now an integral part of their balance sheet, so they ain't going to let it go that easily.
 
The farce of cell phone price competition in South Africa continues.
Instead of being able to pass a saving on to customers we actually have to work even harder to offset this drop in revenue
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You are dead right of course you have to work harder. It's called competition. Do you think that those ludicrous profits would have lasted forever?
 
Isn't CellC's All-week 100 basically here because of the MTR rates dropping? Really cheap - R50 per month for 100 any-time minutes. to any network.
 
Prices would drop if we had real competition in South African (mobile) communications. With only three operators it feels for me more like a cartel. No need for government to get involved, we need more competition, we need a lot more mobile operators to make things really competitive.
 
Is there no end to the stupidity of journalists? The MOBILE termination rate dropped, which means that the MOBILE operators are now charging other operators less for call termination, and the MOBILE operators are losing money as a result. Hence, it's absolutely obvious that there will be little or no reduction in MOBILE RETAIL rates. (One could argue that Cell C, as a substantial net payer, could drop its retail rates, but there's little sense for MTN or Vodacom.)

What has dropped, and very dramatically, is the RETAIL price of FIXED LINE calls to mobile phones (by over 20%, on both Telkom and Neotel), since these operators have seen a substantial net reduction in their costs. Why does nobody else seem to understand this, and keep harping on about MOBILE RETAIL rates?

Things may get more interesting if ICASA manages to force through the dramatic further reductions in both FIXED and MOBILE TERMINATION rates that they're currently proposing.
 
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ICASA is not forcing the new Rates On.......................

ads said:
Is there no end to the stupidity of journalists? The MOBILE termination rate dropped, which means that the MOBILE operators are now charging other operators less for call termination, and the MOBILE operators are losing money as a result. Hence, it's absolutely obvious that there will be little or no reduction in MOBILE RETAIL rates. (One could argue that Cell C, as a substantial net payer, could drop its retail rates, but there's little sense for MTN or Vodacom.)

What has dropped, and very dramatically, is the RETAIL price of FIXED LINE calls to mobile phones (by over 20%, on both Telkom and Neotel), since these operators have seen a substantial net reduction in their costs. Why does nobody else seem to understand this, and keep harping on about MOBILE RETAIL rates?

Things may get more interesting if ICASA manages to force through the dramatic further reductions in both FIXED and MOBILE TERMINATION rates that they're currently proposing.
Click to expand...

ICASA is not forcing the new Rates On.......................They are laying down the LAW follow it or DIE.

Thats putting it mildly.

However this only the first STEP.

9 More to GO.

VodaCom it would have been nice if you only knew what's ahead for You.

But we will have R1 a minute peak time and 25c SMS.

It's just a process by LAW that has to be followed.

Dont Panic Guys Change is Coming.................................................


DXL - Team
 
ads said:
Is there no end to the stupidity of journalists? The MOBILE termination rate dropped, which means that the MOBILE operators are now charging other operators less for call termination, and the MOBILE operators are losing money as a result. Hence, it's absolutely obvious that there will be little or no reduction in MOBILE RETAIL rates. (One could argue that Cell C, as a substantial net payer, could drop its retail rates, but there's little sense for MTN or Vodacom.)

What has dropped, and very dramatically, is the RETAIL price of FIXED LINE calls to mobile phones (by over 20%, on both Telkom and Neotel), since these operators have seen a substantial net reduction in their costs. Why does nobody else seem to understand this, and keep harping on about MOBILE RETAIL rates?

Things may get more interesting if ICASA manages to force through the dramatic further reductions in both FIXED and MOBILE TERMINATION rates that they're currently proposing.
Click to expand...

What a pleasure to read a comment from somebody who understands what MTR is about - I will differ in that afaik Cell C is not a substantial net payer but also lost money when the MTR decreased.

MTR has very little impact on the retail rates paid by the public.
 
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ads said:
Is there no end to the stupidity of journalists? The MOBILE termination rate dropped, which means that the MOBILE operators are now charging other operators less for call termination, and the MOBILE operators are losing money as a result. Hence, it's absolutely obvious that there will be little or no reduction in MOBILE RETAIL rates. (One could argue that Cell C, as a substantial net payer, could drop its retail rates, but there's little sense for MTN or Vodacom.)

What has dropped, and very dramatically, is the RETAIL price of FIXED LINE calls to mobile phones (by over 20%, on both Telkom and Neotel), since these operators have seen a substantial net reduction in their costs. Why does nobody else seem to understand this, and keep harping on about MOBILE RETAIL rates?

Things may get more interesting if ICASA manages to force through the dramatic further reductions in both FIXED and MOBILE TERMINATION rates that they're currently proposing.
Click to expand...

That's assuming that these corporate thieves aren't making SUPER profits in the first place which they are. I mean feel really sorry for Vodacom they only managed to boost earning by 22.3%. shame!
Reducing MTR levels the playing field and reduces the barrier for competition. The timing is a bit unfortunate because where Cell C could lead the price cuts they have just realised that they've finally got to invest in a decent network - especially on the data side - so Cell C needs to rake in a bit of capital until their improved network is finished. This time next year the market should be a good position to finally see some competition, which will be helped substantially by further MTR cuts.

However still the best solution overall is to get Neotel to provide the service it's supposed to be providing - i.e. a true fixed line competitor - which means making a decision on local loop unbundling with a firm implementation date.
 
ads said:
What has dropped, and very dramatically, is the RETAIL price of FIXED LINE calls to mobile phones (by over 20%, on both Telkom and Neotel), since these operators have seen a substantial net reduction in their costs. Why does nobody else seem to understand this, and keep harping on about MOBILE RETAIL rates?

Things may get more interesting if ICASA manages to force through the dramatic further reductions in both FIXED and MOBILE TERMINATION rates that they're currently proposing.
Click to expand...

Telkom looked good reducing the prices, but they didn't lose anything, and its easy to do the math and see that their PROFIT MARGIN on those calls actually WENT UP.
 
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