Nyanda vows to slash broadband costs
SIMPHIWE Nyanda, the minister of communications, promised yesterday to drive down broadband and telephone costs.
Speaking to reporters after his budget vote speech to Parliament, Nyanda said South Africa might yet need a third fixed-line telephone operator to boost competition.
“The cost of telephony is still high, which means that we have not made effective interventions and that perhaps we need even more competition than we have.
“You know what difficulty we had introducing the second network operator and the question is whether that is enough,” he said.
Nyanda confirmed that he planned to appoint an independent technical panel to determine why prices were not falling in response to previous interventions.
Development policies over the past 10 years have routinely cited communications costs as a barrier to growth, but the policies have failed to make a significant impact.
Nyanda said he was concerned that operators had not and would not pass on reductions in their input costs to consumers.
“Obviously the competition authorities will have to see to it that there is no collusion in terms of price,” Nyanda said.
He said his first move would be to speak to private sector operators and look for ways to engineer lower prices, but he said he would take tougher steps if necessary.
“The natural instinct of any private business and of shareholders is to increase their margins, but we have a role to play through legislation and through regulatory authorities to ensure that people bring down their prices.
“If we have to do that, if we have to use regulations, if we have to use the authorities, then we will do it,” he said.
Nyanda promises to slash costs – give your views
The Times
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