Call prices drop after MTR rate cut
After months of hearings, negotiations and media reports lower peak mobile termination rates (MTRs) have kicked in. Vodacom, MTN and Cell C confirmed that a lower peak interconnection rate of R0.89, down from R1.25, has been successfully implemented.
While the debate is raging on as to what the impact will be on retail prices, some consumers are already benefitting from the lower interconnect rates.
Vox Telepreneur clients have been paying R1.05 per minute instead of the usual R1.49 per minute from 1 December in anticipation of the interconnect price cuts.
Neotel announced that their subscribers will pay R1.20 per minute for calls to mobile phones during peak times from today – down from the previous R1.54 per minute. Its off-peak rate of 96c per minute remains unchanged.
Neotel however points out that they are still finalizing their agreement with Cell C, and that the old rates will apply for all calls to Cell C pending finalisation of the agreement.
Telkom has also indicated that they will pass the full 36c per minute saving on to their subscribers. This will see Telkom dropping its peak rate for fixed-to-mobile calls from the current R1.886 per minute to R1.475 per minute.
MTN also announced on Friday that it has cut the call pricing of its One Rate PayAsYouGo service. The price for calls to all networks is now less than 3c per second. “This new price reduction makes this the lowest per second call rate during peak times in South Africa,” MTN said in a press statement.
Interconnect rate cut and call prices << discussion
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