THE Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has called for written submissions for its carrier pre-selection draft regulations.
This comes after the Authority’s release of draft regulations that will allow consumers to choose which service provider they will use for every call they make.
“The purpose of the regulations is to promote competition by giving end-users the ability to choose which telecommunications carrier they prefer when making calls,” said ICASA spokesperson, Sekgoela Sekgoela.
The regulations will allow a customer of one company to select a different service provider to carry a particular call, should the latter’s rates be better for that call to a specified destination.
Sekgoela says these are only draft regulations and there will be many technicalities to iron out, but believes that telecoms service providers will submit their written and oral input.
The regulator has called for written submissions to be handed in by 9 January, and expects the oral hearings to take place on 21 and 22 January.
Globally, there are two forms of pre-carrier select: the first allowing consumers to select the carrier before the call, and the other allowing consumers to select a carrier during the call.
The regulations proposed by ICASA will follow the first form, with a code that needs to be dialled before the consumer dials a phone number.
ICASA’s draft regulations stipulate that all individual-electronic communications network services licensees will have to adhere to these regulations.
This includes all the mobile operators, Telkom, Neotel and all the licensed value-added network service providers, like Vox Telecom and Altech Autopage Cellular.
However, Sekgoela says the regulations globally usually only govern the land-line operators.
