{"id":52392,"date":"2014-01-29T13:20:03","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T11:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=52392"},"modified":"2014-01-30T10:03:19","modified_gmt":"2014-01-30T08:03:19","slug":"telkom-to-pass-on-ctr-cuts-to-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/52392\/telkom-to-pass-on-ctr-cuts-to-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"Telkom to pass on CTR cuts to consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Telkom<\/a>\u00a0has welcomed the new Call Termination Rates (CTRs) issued by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa<\/a>) and says its\u00a0will pass on the cuts to its\u00a0consumers.<\/p>\n

CTRs refer to the fee that one network charges another for receiving and terminating calls on its network, which have\u00a0declined from R1.25 in 2009 to a current price of 40 cents.<\/p>\n

According to the new regulations, the rate will drop to 20 cents from 1 March 2014, with a further drop to\u00a0R0.15 in 2015, and R0.10 the following year.<\/p>\n

“The revised CTRs will substantially contribute to reducing the cost of communication and the consumer will be the biggest beneficiary,” Telkom said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Dr Miriam Altman<\/a>, head of strategy at Telkom said she was encouraged by the introduction of the new Call Termination Rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis brings the market closer to parity in termination rates, supporting the move to convergence between fixed and mobile services. Telkom has for many years subsidised the dominant mobile operators, and this move will begin to level the playing field.<\/p>\n

“Telkom will pass on reductions to consumers and will communicate these savings once it has fully assessed the impact of the regulations,\u201d said Altman.<\/p>\n

The MTR’s for small mobile operators like Cell C<\/a> and Telkom Mobile<\/a> will remain at R.044.<\/p>\n

The fixed termination rate for Telkom remains at R0.12 in respect of local interconnection for the coming year, while the rate for the national interconnections will fall from R0.19 to R0.16.<\/p>\n

By March 2017, the call termination rates for the major operators will be unified at R0.10, with continued, albeit falling, asymmetry for small mobile and fixed operators.<\/p>\n

Cell C responds<\/strong><\/p>\n

Cell C also welcomed Icasa’s announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis comes as a relief to Cell C as we have over the last 18 months committed ourselves to leading price competition even at the expense of our own margins, while motivating to Icasa for pro-competitive relief,” said\u00a0Cell C acting CEO, Jose Dos Santos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Without this intervention it was likely that the South African market would have continued to have been an effective duopoly to the detriment of the consumer, industry and the South African economy. With the support of this regulation, the mobile market will continue to become more competitive on a sustainable basis.”<\/p>\n

The operator said that by increasing its share of the market and putting further pressure on the dominant competitors, it is confident it can drive access to more affordable communications for all South Africans, even those not on its network.<\/p>\n

\u201cIcasa has made a decisive and positive move in publishing these regulations, which we believe is another critical step in levelling the SA telecoms market,\u201d Dos Santos said.<\/p>\n

More on MTRs<\/h3>\n

Vodacom: Consumers won\u2019t benefit from MTR cuts<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Drastic call termination cuts announced<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

New call termination rates coming<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

MTR cuts would cost us R1 billion: MTN<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Vodacom bemoans asymmetry plans<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Telkom says it will pass on the cuts from the newly legislated Call Termination Rates (CTRs) to its consumers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":50233,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[42,26,4339,5831,65,1075],"class_list":["post-52392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-cell-c","tag-headline","tag-jose-dos-santos","tag-miriam-altman","tag-telkom","tag-telkom-mobile"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52392"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52455,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52392\/revisions\/52455"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}