Lower interconnect rates: Yay or Nay

Its ridiculous that the MTN/Vodacom cartel gets away with this. The competition commission needs to urgently address this and ICASA needs to do their job and protect the consumer from being raped by big business in South Africa.

There is something seriously wrong in South Africa, when in Ghana a prepaid call to South Africa costs less than when a South African makes a local prepaid call within South Africa.
 
He said the government wants to cut connection costs between operators from four shillings per minute, but cannot do so without more information on the distribution of phones.
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via: http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE56M0IJ20090723

4 KES is roughly 0.40 ZAR

Kenya has 19mil mobile users, and 4 operators. Their interconnect fees are very low, and they are pushing to lower them!

How can Kenya have a better mobile market than SA? Oh yes, the old-school greed mentality. Lets keep screwing over the SA public, I mean look at how apathetic they are...
 
Well, time for government to unleash the Telkom 2 then!

Oh .. but wait .. government wants Telkom 2 to provide for the not-haves, and in order to pay for that, it will need the current ripoff fiasco to continue.

So, don't look at government for the answer, it's not going to happen.
 
Surely by now it should be considered a sign of insanity if people are still expecting government to fix this situation.
 
So we have to move over to CeLL C to give Voda/Mtn/Hellkom the finger. Thats exactly what iam gonna do.

So vodacom don't count on my few hundred bucks a month after my contract expires.
 
kaaskop said:
So we have to move over to CeLL C to give Voda/Mtn/Hellkom the finger. Thats exactly what iam gonna do.

So vodacom don't count on my few hundred bucks a month after my contract expires.
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When you call your buddies on Vodacom from your CellC phone they are still getting your money. ;)
 
I do think lower prices is just one piece of the puzzle. The most important thing about lower interconnect rates would be more flexibility. Vodacom, MTN and Telkom's biggest threat is not necessarily lower rates, but disruptive business models. At the moment these companies set the agenda, and they control the shape of the future to their best interest. Lower interconnect rates will result in bigger and better innovation opportunities for existing competitors and NEW competitors.

Of course MTN say that interconnect rates subside the poor. I think this is a straight out lie. I think it harms the poor - the poor always paid more for mobile telephony in this country than the rich.

The only real negative to lower interconnect rates is that telemarkets will find it easier to bother me :-)
 
morkhans said:
When you call your buddies on Vodacom from your CellC phone they are still getting your money. ;)
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Ja, but at least he has the choice. His buddies on Neotel and him will save some money. Better that than be a part of one of the greedy corps where you will pay every single time and are supporting the high prices.
 
kaaskop said:
So we have to move over to CeLL C to give Voda/Mtn/Hellkom the finger. Thats exactly what iam gonna do.

So vodacom don't count on my few hundred bucks a month after my contract expires.
Click to expand...

They ALL suck!

First off...any consumer that "accepts" a "contract" for internet connectivity OF ANY KIND needs their head read! Neotel insists on a 24 month ADSL contract! Ridiculous! Why should a consumer be FORCED into a contract? Just another way to proudly screw a fellow South African!

Secondly...There should be NO CAP! Yet another way of robbing you of your hard earned money and another way to proudly screw a fellow South African!

Thirdly...Look at Sweden, a country with a population the size of greater Durban...and for around R350 a month, or also in Scotland where they get: line rental, No cap, guaranteed TRUE high speed access, free local calls, many TV channels and much more! We need to match this as a minimum standard! Bear also in mind that their salaries are 10x or higher than ours to boot!

Lastly...Hellkom will always screw you no matter what and they, along with all the other providers, need to provide their directors with millions in bonusses and goodness knows what else, and the only way they can do this is to PROUDLY SCREW YOU THE POOR SOUTH AFRICAN CONSUMER!

Consumers in SA need to catch a wake up...and quickly!!

Kaaskop, when your contract ends with Vodarob, I sincerely suggest that you really try not to get tied up in gazillions of non-understandable pages of legal small print and show these greedy communications moguls the middle finger! I know it sucks having to use ADSL on a 4 meg Hellkom line, but that along with my ADSL month to month bundle from Axxess, I do ok under the harsh conditions of 20-30kb/s :( . A note though that their "uncapped" service through Internet Solutions is not any better either!
 
kaaskop said:
So we have to move over to CeLL C to give Voda/Mtn/Hellkom the finger. Thats exactly what iam gonna do.

So vodacom don't count on my few hundred bucks a month after my contract expires.
Click to expand...

I am only with cellc sins they the smallest and trying the hardest
 
Interconnection fees are basically TAX that we are paying the players in the telecoms industry for making calls. It stinks of price fixing and collusion.
 
An idea of what cellular costs in the country could be, just take a look at a current community cell phone. Currently a customer pays 90 cents per minute the store owner makes some profit from that and I'm sure the network covers its costs on that call.

So at a 33% markup we could expect call rates to be in the region of R1.25 per minute.

Where are the unions why are they not making a stink about their members being raped by MTN/Vodacom on call costs, where are the politicians on this demanding consumer protection, who cares about ICASA they've proved they are useless. So what are we left with Competition Commission who will more than likely take another 5 years to investigate.
 
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