Johannesburg, 15 Aug 2000
Telkom today applied for a court order to prevent cellular operators MTN and Vodacom from offering what it describes as PABX routing equipment, saying the equipment contravenes the Telecommunications Act and the licences of MTN and Vodacom.
Telkom has also lodged a complaint with the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA), claiming MTN and Vodacom are engaging in price discrimination against it.
The equipment in question is a mobile add-on to a corporate PABX system that routes cellular calls directly to a mobile network, bypassing the Telkom fixed-line network. The plug-in provides a direct link to the nearest cellular base station and intercepts incoming and outgoing calls.
Telkom says companies using such equipment are offered volume discounts, while Telkom is charged a fixed fee for calls from its network to a mobile handset. It says such a service uses discriminatory pricing and is to the detriment of fixed-line customers.
"The extent is difficult to quantify," says Andrew Weldrick, Telkom media relations manager. "We know that the practice goes back as far as 1997 and maybe earlier." He says it is difficult to determine how much traffic is routed through such systems, and therefore difficult to estimate the damages Telkom has suffered.
"Over the past two years Telkom has made several attempts to have the mobile operators desist from this unlawful activity without success," the company says in a statement. "Instead the companies have intensified their marketing of the 'routing` equipment." It says complaints have also been filed with ICASA predecessor, the SA Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (SATRA), but that these were never addressed.
Equipment providers Plessey Cellular, Vodac, Cellular Operations, Nashua and Nokia are also named as respondents in the action.
MTN says it will fight the action.
"We are aware of the contemplated action and have taken legal advice," says MTN spokesman Jacques Sellschop. "We are confident that our current action is completely legitimate and will defend it accordingly."
Vodacom has also acknowledged the action.
A telecommunications sales representative contacted by ITWeb said the PABX equipment is subsidised as contract cellular headsets are, and that "you should not even have to pay for the installation".
"But once you plug the device into your switchboard you need to have Telkom program it for you, and some people in Telkom think it is illegal," he said, but advised that it is possible to have the programming done.
Ray Webber, a member of the South African Telephony Managers Association steering committee, says so-called "cellboxes" that divert calls are not illegal. "If you had a runner with a single cellphone going around the office, and every time you make a cellular call you use that single cellphone, that would not be illegal," he explains.
Aggregating cellular calls by using an addition to a PABX is no different, he says. He also believes a cellbox adds resilience to a corporate telephone network, providing a backup in case of a Telkom line failure, and can be legally and effectively used as an alternative where delays in installing Telkom lines occur.
Webber says making cellphone calls through such a system costs the average corporate in the region of R1.10 per unit, a 30% saving on the R1.60 it would cost using the Telkom network. "Any self-respecting telephony manager and corporate will use such a device," he says.
Telkom says papers will have been served on MTN and Vodacom by the end of the day and it expects an outcome to its urgent interdict application this week.
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Telkom turns to courts, ICASA
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