Committee to hold public hearings

By Ofentse Mokae
16 September 2009

Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Communications is to hold public hearings to have mobile operators bring down their excessive and expensive interconnection rates as soon as next month.

The committee met with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), the Competition Commission and the Department of Communications yesterday to discuss the interconnection rates.

During the meeting, the committee agreed that it was necessary to call for public submissions on 13 and 14 October.

In a media statement, the committee said it based its proposals on the belief that interconnection rates in South Africa were very expensive resulting in very high telecommunication prices.

South Africans are currently paying R1.25 per minute during peak times for their interconnection fee a charge to enable calls to be transmitted from each other's networks.

It will propose that mobile and telecoms operators drop the interconnection rates with effect from 1 November 2009 to 60 cents per minute during peak times.

It further wants interconnection rates to be reduced by 15 cents annually on 1 November for each successive year until 2012 and that this should results in reductions in the actual retail prices of telecommunications.

It also believed that this was the consequence of alleged historical collusion between dominant mobile operators in the country.

This, is said to have placed profits and greed above people.