First interconnect reportback due in October
The first reportback on progress regarding mobile termination rates was expected in October, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) said on Friday. The mobile termination rate — or interconnect fee — is the fee that one network charges another for terminating or completing calls on its network. Earlier in the week, Icasa met [...]
Trade union wants interconnect fees slashed
Solidarity has asked the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) for a significant cut in interconnect fees, the trade union said on Thursday. Interconnect rates are the amounts charged by networks for carrying calls on behalf of one another. The union said a thorough investigation into the true cost of interconnectivity should be carried out. [...]
Vodacom downgraded over interconnect fears
Brokerage Barnard Jacobs Mellet Securities has revised its share price target for telecommunications group Vodacom sharply downward in anticipation of a significant fall in interconnection rates in SA that could hit the group’s profits. BJM Securities has also lowered its target price for MTN, but not to the same degree as Vodacom, given that the [...]
Icasa summons operators over tariffs
Telecommunications industry regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa), has summoned SA’s incumbent operators, including Telkom, Vodacom and MTN, to an urgent meeting tomorrow (Tuesday) morning. It wants the operators to answer questions about their tariffs. Icasa spokesman Sekgoela Sekgoela confirms that the operators have been called to a meeting and says its purpose [...]
LCR providers set to lose out, says Holdsworth
Companies that provide least-cost routing (LCR) services don’t want mobile interconnect rates in SA to fall precipitously as they profit from the arbitrage opportunities that the high fees offer. That’s the view of ECN Telecommunications CEO John Holdsworth (pictured), who says LCR operators have a “vested interest in maintaining the status quo, and, providing the [...]
Consumers being ‘duped over interconnect’
Consumers are being duped into believing that mobile call costs are going to plummet once the country’s cellular network operators begin reducing call termination rates, the fees they charge to carry calls on each other’s networks. That’s the view of Jacques du Toit, MD of VoxOrion, a subsidiary of JSE-listed telecommunications group Vox Telecom. “What [...]
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