Telkom has announced a tariff reduction of 1,7% on basic voice and data services, including an 11,3% decrease in the rental cost of its 1Mbit/s fixed-line broadband service. The new tariffs take effect on 1 August, and must be approved by the Independent Communications Authority of SA.

The full press release is pasted below. See TechCentral’s article: Telkom giveth and Telkom taketh away. — Staff reporter, TechCentral

Telkom’s customers can look forward to an overall tariff decrease of 1.7% on basic voice and data services following the announcement of the Company’s 2011 tariff annual adjustments.
The adjustments, which will come into effect on 1 August 2011, apply to Telkom’s tariffs for line rentals, outgoing calls, DSL and data connectivity services.
“Telkom has again ensured that our tariff adjustments are considerate of the Consumer Price Index, effectively offering consumers relief at a time when inflation is at 4.6%,” noted Senior Managing Executive for Telkom SA Manelisa Mavuso.
Mr Mavuso pointed to a decrease in the tariffs of almost all post-paid fixed line calls.
“We are reducing the tariffs of all long-distance calls, as well as the Standard time call charges for local calls. The local per minute call charge in Callmore time remain unchanged.”
Telkom is reducing its call tariffs to some of the popular international fixed-line destinations, including Australia, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States.
Moving on to fixed-to-mobile call tariffs, Mr Mavuso highlighted that Telkom customers will again benefit from a reduction in mobile interconnect tariffs.
“Effectively, Telkom will pass through a saving of approximately R1.5 billion since March 2010,” he explained. The new per minute tariffs will be R1.40 during peak time and R1.12 during off-peak time.
“Telkom is also passing on approximately R180 million per annum to the telecommunications industry as a result of the reduction in our fixed termination rates on 1 March 2011,” stated Mr Mavuso.
Amidst the reduction in call tariffs, Telkom revealed an increase of only 5% in the monthly rental for a Telkom line. Telkom residential customers will pay R139.97 a month and business customers R191.84. Enterprise customers will benefit from no increase in the tariffs for primary rate ISDN services. The overall increase on data connectivity tariffs is only 2.0%.
Telkom’s Faster DSL customers can expect an 11.3% decrease in the monthly rental fee from R326 to R289 from 1 July. This price reduction comes after Telkom has already increased the speed for its Faster DSL customers from up to 512kbp/s to up to 1024 kbp/s on 1 May 2011. Tariffs for all other DSL access services remain unchanged.
Over and above the changes to the tariffs of basic voice and data services, Telkom is adjusting the tariffs of some of its broadband bundles and calling plans for residential customers.
“Telkom will not be increasing the monthly subscription for the Do Broadband bundles instead customers will be pleased to know that from 1 September Telkom will be offering Do Broadband 2&3 customers more value – for the same price,” said Mr Mavuso. These customers will receive an additional 1GB for the existing monthly price, R258 for Do 2 and R554 for Do 3 customers.
Telkom is filling a gap in the Do Broadband by introducing an enhanced offer which will consist of a faster DSL (now up to 1mb/s) service bundled with a 5GB Internet account for R395 a month.
In the case of the CLOSER calling plans, CLOSER 1 will increase from R150 to R158 a month and CLOSER 2 from R170 to R177 a month from 1 August. CLOSER 3 will remain unchanged at R333.
“We hope that our customers will appreciate that we have been able to contain tariff increases at a time when the economy is under severe inflationary pressure,” said Mr Mavuso.
“Telkom’s latest tariff adjustment indicates our drive to bolster our competitive edge while striving to ensure that telecommunications become more affordable and accessible,” he continued.