The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s (ICASA’s) public hearings for the Draft Call Termination Regulations are currently under way with South Africa’s telecoms operators battling it out to have their way with the regulator.<\/p>\n
High interconnect rates have been blamed for the country’s high mobile call rates, but certain parties argue that the mobile interconnect price cuts which kicked in on 1 March<\/a> had no real effect on consumer pricing.<\/p>\n Speaking to eNews Howard Sackstein<\/a><\/strong>, Executive Director of Saicom Voice Services, said that he has seen no change in their mobile bills from March, adding that prices have even increased in some cases. Sackstein runs around 100,000 cellular accounts which gives a good overview of average cellular call prices.<\/p>\n Sackstein said that prices from the mobile operators have not decreased as expected after the March mobile termination rate cuts, and apart from some ‘window dressing’ from Vodacom, MTN and Cell C no significant price changes have been seen.<\/p>\n