Report on interconnect rates expected soon

Friday, September 11, 2009

Johannesburg - South Africans will soon know if they will be charged an interconnect fee when making a call from one network to another.

According to Independent Communications Authority's (Icasa) spokesperson Sekgoela Sekgoela, the first report back on progress regarding the mobile termination rates is expected on 9 October.

The mobile termination rate is the fee that one network charges another for terminating or completing calls on its network.

The high mobile interconnect rates in South Africa have come under fire recently, with consumers, politicians and even worker unions asking for reduced interconnect rates.

Earlier this week, the regulator for the country's communications sector met with representatives of Vodacom, MTN, Cell C, Neotel, Telkom and the Internet Services Providers Association (ISPA).

"At this meeting it was agreed that industry would review its position on termination rates," said Sekgoela.

On Friday, Icasa met again with industry representatives where the parties agreed that the focus for any negotiations would be on the termination of the rate.