MyBroadband tested toll-free numbers in South Africa and found that only Cell C charged for calls to these numbers.<\/p>\n
Toll-free numbers in South Africa generally start with 0800 and are commonly used by government departments and other companies which provide a free service.<\/p>\n
Calls to these numbers are charged to the owner of the toll-free number instead of the incoming caller.<\/p>\n
It means that you would expect these numbers to be free to dial, regardless of the network operator you use.<\/p>\n
To test whether calls to toll-free numbers are, indeed, free, MyBroadband Insights made calls to three toll-free numbers.<\/p>\n
Each call was held until the end of the menus and then terminated to ensure we did not increase the call centres’ load. The calls lasted between 30 and 95 seconds.<\/p>\n
For this test, we used prepaid SIM cards from each network with default tariff settings.<\/p>\n
Vodacom, MTN, and Telkom all performed as expected \u2014 the calls were free, and no airtime or included minutes were used for these calls.<\/p>\n
Cell C, however, charged for all three of these numbers. The amounts levied correlated to the normal R1.50 per minute tariffs.<\/p>\n
Zahir Williams, chief legal officer at Cell C, told MyBroadband they had provisioned 0800 toll-free numbers on its network compliant with the numbering plan regulations issued in 2016.<\/p>\n
“Where any billing discrepancies occurred, such incidents will be investigated to determine the reasons for such charges,” Williams said.<\/p>\n