Johannesburg (IT News Africa) — Opposition leader Patricia de Lille said South Africans can be satisfied that there is a new urgency in the fight for fair cell phone call rates, the regulation of interconnect rates and healthy competition in the market.
The Independent Democrats leader said this after meeting the Independent Communications Authority of south Africa and the and the Competition Commission where she raised concern on ‘overcharging’ by the country’s mobile network operators.
De Lille said ICASA agreed that there is a need to look into the high interconnect rates and that they will engage with cellphone operators in this regard.
“ICASA offered to cooperate with the Competition Commission in their investigation into possible collusion and anticompetitive behaviour,” De Lille said.
De Lille last week lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission calling on it to investigate, ‘in terms of the Act .whether the operators, particularly the dominant players, were acting anti-competitively or were guilty of any prohibited practices.”
“I believe that South Africans have long suffered poor competition and exorbitant telecommunications costs unnecessarily and that it is vitally important that this be investigated by the Competition Commission urgently. Our economy and all South Africans, but especially the poor, are
affected by this,” her letter stated.
