South Africa\u2019s telecommunications regulator plans to investigate prices charged by digital media and communications service providers such as Netflix and Meta Platforms’ WhatsApp, Business Day reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The probe will assess the cost of so-called over-the-top services to consumers, the Johannesburg-based newspaper said on Monday, citing an announcement from the authority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa will also initiate a separate inquiry into the cost of telecommunications services that may weigh on major firms, including MTN, Vodacom, Telkom, and Cell C, the paper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Telecommunications-service costs in South Africa are among the highest in the world, and the inquiry will build on the regulator\u2019s earlier reviews of data services and its monitoring of prices after high-speed internet spectrum was allocated and competition measures were introduced, the paper said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The probe comes after the country\u2019s communications minister sought experts to identify policies and interventions that could help lower prices, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The regulator\u2019s spokeswoman didn\u2019t answer her phone when Bloomberg called outside normal business hours seeking comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ICASA have announced plans for inquiries into digital media and communications services providers, including Netflix and WhatsApp.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":810817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"failed","_sma_x_autopost_error":"Instagram publishing failed: Instagram returned HTTP 400: Media ID is not available","_sma_x_post_id":"2096873113891828119","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2198348197652246","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9878],"tags":[36,263,2118],"class_list":["post-874122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-icasa","tag-netflix","tag-whatsapp"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874122","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=874122"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":874131,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/874122\/revisions\/874131"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=874122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=874122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=874122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}