Lower interconnect rates key - CEO

I like the idea of cost based interconnection fees. It should be a gentleman's agreement with a little bit of backup from the law that the playing field should be level. Whatever services you offer from there on in gives you your competitive edge...
 
Good news for consumers and telecoms operators is that there seems to be progress again. When ICASA was asked about the status of these regulations the regulator said that the regulations were being finalised and would be published shortly. No specific dates were given.
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sorry to say but i would estimate no less than 3 years before we see any real change here. i don't want to get overly technical but it is not just a question of publishing some regulations on call termination - there are a number of other procedural steps and studies which have to take place & i for one would be very surprised if the process was not delayerd by litigation at some stage

the parallel process in the EU has been going for some time now and, iirc, is only anticipated to see results in 2012
 
It's very good that this matter is becoming even more public. Hopefully eventually it will 'force' ICASA into adopting speedy resolutions in order to make the market more competitive. It's ridiculous how long it's been going on.
 
i think its gonna be a another wishy washy watered down version to make all parties happy that it was addressed but change will be left up to the incumbents (seems the icasa way) :(
 
antowan said:
I like the idea of cost based interconnection fees. It should be a gentleman's agreement with a little bit of backup from the law that the playing field should be level. Whatever services you offer from there on in gives you your competitive edge...
Click to expand...

Unfortunately we are not dealing with gentleman!
We have a toothless regulator and a bunch of people only interested in the bottom line
 
The article is right that interconnect is the single biggest hurdle to cheap calls in SA and we need to build strong public opinion to force this down with or without legal intervention.

Cellphone calls are too expensive, international calls are too high as a result (incoming and outgoing) and fixed line prices appear cheap when they are not. Virgin's campaign to have 99c/min calls last year was spot on but nobody (the telcos and the new VANs operators can innovate around pricing if they still have to pay R1.25/m to make calls into the two big operators.

In Europe the regulator has already tackled this issue with a 30% drop a few years ago and further cuts recently. Hopefully the public can see the moves and push for change here too.

Cellphone operators don't really lose out anyway - as low-cost countries like India show, they just end up carrying higher traffic as people phone more. Telecoms equipt these days has such improved capacity over a few years ago so why shouldn't customers benefit from these breakthroughs.

Let's keep up the public pressure and Mybroadband - please lead the way!
 
the corporate culture in this country is to screw the consumer. so i really dont get it when ceo's complain that someone bigger than them is screwing them, because if there were in their shoes they'd do the same thing anyway.

where it doesnt concern interconnect rates, it is:
- dont compare us to 1st world countries?
- exchange rates
- petrol price

and when the prices drop, none of these benefits get passed on to the consumer anyway.

so whichever way u look at it, bend over...
 
Same in other countries

Even with the EU commission and the local country regulators barking down on the regulatory bodies in the European countries it was years before the incumbents where forced to lower their inter-connect rates. Be interesting to see if South Africa can beat their times.
 
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