South Africa’s Vodacom plans to launch a legal challenge against a regulatory cut in fees mobile carriers are allowed to charge each other, its chief executive said on Wednesday.
Shameel Joosub also told analysts on a call the planned cut in mobile termination rates by South Africa’s communications regulator could cost the company 1 billion rand ($90 million) in the 2015 financial year. ($1 = 11.1242 South African rand)
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) unveiled the new call termination rates on 29 January 2014, which will see significant cuts to mobile termination rates over the next three years.
Call termination rates are what one operator charges another operator to terminate a call on its network. For example, if a Vodacom subscriber makes a call to an MTN subscriber, Vodacom will pay MTN to terminate that call on its network.
Year | Mobile termination rates | Fixed termination rates | ||||
Regulated rate | Asymmetry | Regulated rate | Asymmetry | |||
WON | BON | WON | BON | |||
2014 | R0.20 | R0.44 | R0.12 | R0.16 | R0.13 | R0.21 |
2015 | R0.15 | R0.42 | R0.12 | R0.12 | R0.13 | R0.13 |
2016 | R0.10 | R0.40 | R0.10 | R0.10 | R0.13 | R0.13 |
2017 | R0.20 | R0.13 | R0.13 |
WON: Within Area Code | BON: Between Area Codes
(Reporting with Reuters by David Dolan; Editing by Ed Cropley)
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