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Cell C calls for court review of termination rates

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 25 Jan 2015
Cell C wants a review of all correspondence related to mobile termination rates.
Cell C wants a review of all correspondence related to mobile termination rates.

Cell C - SA's third-largest mobile operator - has gone to the South Gauteng High Court to get it to review the Independent Communications Authority of SA's (ICASA's) latest decision on termination rates.

In April last year, ICASA changed the mobile termination rate regime in a move that was subsequently thrown out by the South Gauteng High Court, which ruled, at the end of March, those contested termination rates were invalid, but would be in force until the end of September.

The regulator's April rates heavily favoured smaller players Cell C and Telkom Mobile. From April, mobile termination rates for Vodacom and MTN dropped to 20c - half the previous rate - while Cell C and Telkom Mobile were able to charge the two larger players more than double that (44c) to terminate calls on their network.

Towards the end of September, the regulator decreed mobile termination rates would remain at 20c until next September, after which they would drop to 16c, and then 13c in the final year to September 2017. Cell C and Telkom Mobile will now be able to charge the duopoly 31c to terminate calls on their networks, which then drops to 24c and then 19c at the end of the glide path.

CEO Jose dos Santos says Cell C does not agree with ICASA's call termination regulations. In a bid to get a copy of the record leading to ICASA's decision to promulgate the regulations, Cell C, last December, lodged an application with the South Gauteng High Court to review the regulations.

Dos Santos explains the record is "all correspondence between ICASA and the network operators and other parties, ICASA's meeting minutes, reports from ICASA's experts, presentations and other documentation that shows what process ICASA followed and what information it relied on in making its decision".

"Once Cell C has received the full record and has studied it in detail together with its legal advisors, economists and other experts it will decide what further steps to take in this matter."

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