Icasa draft call termination regulations published

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) has gazetted the draft call termination regulations, it said on Monday.

“The authority advised during its presentation of the proposed termination rates that interested parties will be given 14 days within which to make submissions,” Icasa said in a statement.

“However, it was decided that it will be in the interest of all stakeholders to be given 30 days from the date of publication to submit written comments on the draft regulations.”

Icasa released the draft call termination regulations earlier this month.

Termination rates are the fees operators pay to connect calls between the networks.

At the release, Icasa councillor William Stucke said the current rate of 40 cents a minute levied by operators like Vodacom and MTN would drop to 20 cents a minute in 2014, 15 cents in 2015 and 10 cents in 2016.

Icasa also introduced an asymmetric rates system for smaller operators with a market share of less than 20 percent, like Cell C and Telkom Mobile.

Under the asymmetric system, the current 44 cents a minute would drop to 39 cents in 2014, 33 cents in 2015, and 26 cents in 2016. It would reach 10 cents a minute by 2019.

In 2010, Icasa determined that ineffective competition existed in the provision of call termination because of inefficient pricing.

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