The Wireless Application Service Providers Association yesterday overwhelmingly voted in favour of lodging a complaint against Cell C with the Competition Commission.
The industry body took the vote at its annual general meeting, which was attended by about 100 companies, sources familiar with the situation say. According to a source, the bulk of those present were in favour of some sort of action against Cell C, after the company allegedly favoured CellFind.
Industry players had been agitated that Cell C was allowing Cellfind, owned by JSE-listed Blue Label, to terminate application-to-person (A2P) messages across all networks, and not opening this route up to other wireless service application providers (Wasps).
Cell C's move was seen as a breach of a "gentleman's agreement" between operators, under which A2P messages sent to a subscriber on one network were terminated on that network, which negated the necessity for an interconnect regime.
Wasps were also unhappy that Cell C allegedly allowed Cell C subscribers to have a return path to the sender, while subscribers on other networks would pay for SMSes that were never delivered.
Open to all
Cell C is aware of the motion, but denies that it has acted in an anti-competitive manner.
Cell C CEO Alan Knott-Craig says Cell C had been conducting a technical trial with Cellfind, which has now been concluded. Cell C, in a separate statement, says those Wasps "looking to conclude contracts on a similar basis with Cell C were requested to wait until the end of the trial period, because wider rollout of an untested model could have had a negative impact on Cell's network and business".
The operator has decided to implement the solution to all interested Wasps and we have invited Wasps to negotiate commercial agreements to give effect to this new commercial model, it says. It adds that the meetings yesterday and will continue today and next week.
"Cell C is disappointed to learn that Wasps, including those that already had meetings scheduled with Cell C, did not take any of this into account when the motion to lodge a complaint against the company was passed."
The operator adds: "There is no merit in the allegations of anti-competitive behaviour and Cell C will contest any complaint levelled at it in this regard."
Blue Label was not immediately available to comment.
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