No more telecoms 'rip-offs'

[Drake2007]

Once government is done with slashing cellphone interconnection rates, it will issue directives to cut the costs of broadband, international calls and short message service (SMS), which are all high by global standards.

Mamodupi Mohlala, the director-general of the communications department, said this week that the government had set itself a deadline of forcing down telecoms costs by the end of May next year.

"We have a programme of action that has specific timelines. We expect by May next year to have given a policy directive on all the services. This will include mobile interconnection, broadband, international calls, SMSes, and retail tariffs," Mohlahla said.

link

 

[Rosaudio]

cool

 

[The_Unbeliever]

They started off on a positive note.

But I think they can lessen their work by just throwing the market wide open and step in only when neccessary.

 

[upup]

tell the minister that his people cannot watch the soccer on the net because off pricing and capps, etc and then you will see.

 

[ToxicBunny]

policy directives are worth sweet fsck all....

Action is all that counts in my books.

 

[Zenbaas]

They started off on a positive note.

But I think they can lessen their work by just throwing the market wide open and step in only when neccessary.

I afree but that would hurt them ie. telkom and LLU.

policy directives are worth sweet fsck all....

Action is all that counts in my books.

We expect by May next year to have given a policy directive on all the services

Exactly. Actions speak louder then words

 

[Praeses]

So far they've been quite active (which is an oxymoron when it comes to telecoms in SA) so let's hope for the best!

 

[AntiThesis]

Hey, every step like this is at least a step in the right direction. Perhaps this will actually come to something.

 

[zageek]

The key is defnitelly to open the market up and encourage stronger competition. Perhaps even split Telkom up and sell off its infrastructure to other players.

All we need to do is look at a country like South Korea for example which has one of the highest broadband penetration rates, and there are many companies competing for the consumers money. Then there is Japan. All we need to do is try and emulate successful models from overseas, and adapt them to how things work in Africa.