Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda has come out in support of the regulator, despite its decision not to review agreements which he put in place last year with the operators.
Last year, the minister called the operators into the department's boardrooms to hash out an agreement to lower interconnect fees. This followed public outcry, spearheaded by Independent Democrats (ID) leader, Patricia de Lille, accusing the rates of keeping local telecoms costs high.
In a radical response to the operators' proposed interconnect rates, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has decided not to allow the current documents to pass through review.
ICASA says the operators have built a clause into the agreements which will prevent it from regulating interconnection for the next three years. “They cannot expect us not to regulate, and cannot demand that of us,” the regulator said this morning.
Nyanda says ICASA has made the right decision. “The mobile operators made a submission to ICASA to reduce the interconnection rate conditional upon on a three-year glide path period, which ICASA has turned down.
“It's also the minister's view that the proposed three-year glide path period is long and unfair to consumers who have been affected by high telecommunication costs for too long,” the DOC explained in a statement.
He says he respects the independence of the regulator, and has always indicated that the final decision would be up to ICASA. Nyanda says the actual cuts should be implemented in a shorter period.
Waiting game
The minister's response comes hot on the heels of outcry by the ID, calling their proposed agreements “insulting to Parliament and the people of SA”.
ICASA says the operators probably tried to cut it out of interconnect regulation, because they “are afraid the regulations we are in the process of prescribing will produce a lower interconnect rate”. The regulator states the operators were trying to pre-empt its decision, which ICASA says will be a cost-based model.
According to the regulator, the new draft regulations on the termination rates will be available this month, with final regulations expected in June - if the operators don't contest it too much.
The regulator also plans to put out competition regulations for the telecoms industry to coexist beside the new interconnect regulations.
Both the incumbents and alternative operators are now waiting to find out what will happen with interconnection. Analysts say that while ICASA seems to have made the right decision, it will cause unwanted uncertainty in the industry.
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