TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Fixing SA’s power crisis is not complex: it simply takes the will to do better

      12 August 2022

      Consortium makes unsolicited bid for state’s 40% stake in Telkom

      12 August 2022

      Actually, solar users should pay more to access the grid – here’s why

      12 August 2022

      Telkom says MTN talks remain on track

      12 August 2022

      Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

      11 August 2022
    • World

      Tencent woes mount, even after $560-billion selloff

      12 August 2022

      Huawei just booked its first sales rise since US blacklisting

      12 August 2022

      Apple remains upbeat about iPhone sales even as Android world suffers

      12 August 2022

      Ether at two-month high as upgrade to blockchain passes major test

      12 August 2022

      Gaming industry’s fortunes fade as pandemic ends

      11 August 2022
    • In-depth

      African unicorn Flutterwave battles fires on multiple fronts

      11 August 2022

      The length of Earth’s days has been increasing – and no one knows why

      7 August 2022

      As Facebook fades, the Mad Men of advertising stage a comeback

      2 August 2022

      Crypto breaks the rules. That’s the point

      27 July 2022

      E-mail scams are getting chillingly personal

      17 July 2022
    • Podcasts

      Qush on infosec: why prevention is always better than cure

      11 August 2022

      e4’s Adri Führi on encouraging more women into tech careers

      10 August 2022

      How South Africa can woo more women into tech

      4 August 2022

      Book and check-in via WhatsApp? FlySafair is on it

      28 July 2022

      Interview: Why Dell’s next-gen PowerEdge servers change the game

      28 July 2022
    • Opinion

      No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

      11 July 2022

      Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

      8 July 2022

      South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

      4 July 2022

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»Opinion»Duncan McLeod»How I became the news, unwittingly

    How I became the news, unwittingly

    Duncan McLeod By Editor15 September 2009
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    Duncan McLeod

    SA’s telecommunications industry is in such a poor state precisely because of secret deals done in smoke-filled rooms. So it’s troubling that the same thing is happening with talks over the critical issue of mobile interconnection fees.

    I became the news in a small way last week when I was asked to leave a closed-door meeting between the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) and the country’s telecoms operators.

    Icasa, under intense political pressure, had called last Tuesday’s meeting firstly to berate the mobile operators over high interconnection fees, and secondly to ask them to find a way of voluntarily bringing down the fees from February next year.

    These rates, set at R1,25/minute during peak times, are the fees the mobile operators charge one another and other operators to carry calls on their networks. The operators have been accused of using the fees as a crude anticompetitive club to keep new competitors from emerging.

    It was clear from the start that I was not welcome at the meeting. I had called Icasa that morning and asked for permission to attend, but had not received a response. Just as the meeting was about to start, I was told by an Icasa official that the media were not welcome.

    But, as I settled down outside to wait for it to conclude, another Icasa official ushered me in to the back of the room. MTN SA CEO Karel Pienaar noticed my presence almost immediately and raised an objection with Icasa chairman Paris Mashile, who, in turn, asked me to leave the room. I asked what the legal basis was for asking me to leave and was told that the meeting was closed and by invitation only and that this was sufficient reason.

    It’s not surprising that Pienaar — and some other operators represented in the room — didn’t want me there. For MTN and Vodacom, there are billions of rand at stake. Already, one brokerage, Barnard Jacobs Mellet Securities, has downgraded its price target on Vodacom from R84/share to R60/share because of fears over the impact of reduced interconnection fees.

    My ejection from the Icasa meeting is problematic. Interconnection rates are a hugely contentious issue in SA. They affect every person who owns a cellphone — and that’s most of the population. Though the media weren’t expressly invited, the meeting was certainly in the public interest. Icasa has held a follow-up meeting with operators but no-one knows what was discussed, except that there will be a report-back by October.

    These discussions should be held mostly in public. South Africans have the right to know what is being discussed as it affects their pockets directly. One has only to remember that the communications sector in SA is in the state it’s in — high prices, poor service and a lack of robust competition, especially in fixed-line services — because of cozy deals struck in secret.

    Former Vodacom Group CEO Alan Knott-Craig has succinctly put these problems in perspective in his latest column for TechCentral. He says one of the former foreign investors in Telkom, SBC (now AT&T), “effectively drafted the 1996 Telecommunications Act after transferring its entire San Antonio corporate legislative team to SA ”. The then-new ANC administration, still wet behind the ears, sold the country’s telecoms industry up the proverbial river.

    Knott-Craig blames this deal, done in secret, for the relatively high broadband prices we continue to pay. “When Telkom’s foreign investors were done, we were poorer and had irrevocably fallen behind the rest of the world in terms of cheap, high-speed bandwidth.”

    Yet we permit the discussions around interconnection rates to take place behind closed doors. It appears we’ve learnt very little.

    • McLeod is editor of TechCentral. This column is also published in the Financial Mail.
    Alan Knott-Craig Duncan McLeod Icasa Vodacom
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleIcasa resists pressure over licensing of Infraco
    Next Article Cooling off period mooted for Icasa councillors

    Related Posts

    Analysis | Rain muddies the waters with approach to Telkom

    11 August 2022

    Largest SA telecoms operators launch new industry association

    11 August 2022

    Willington Ngwepe to step down as Icasa CEO

    10 August 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Get your brand in front of TechCentral’s amazing audience

    12 August 2022

    Pricing Beyond CMYK: printers answer the FAQs

    11 August 2022

    How secure is your cloud?

    10 August 2022
    Opinion

    No reason South Africa should have a shortage of electricity: Ramaphosa

    11 July 2022

    Ntshavheni’s bias against the private sector

    8 July 2022

    South Africa can no longer rely on Eskom alone

    4 July 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.