Telkom is pushing up basic and broadband line rental fees as part of its annual tariff adjustments it files with its regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA.
Monthly rental fees for its digital subscriber line (DSL) broadband products are being hiked to R165/month for 384kbit/s service from R152/month now. 1Mbit/s customers can expect to pay R299/month in future (from R289/month) and customers with 4Mbit/s and 10Mbit/s lines will pay R425/month from R413/month now.
Telkom announced earlier this month that it would increase the access speeds for 384kbit/s DSL to 1Mbit/s and 1Mbit/s customers would see their speeds doubled to 2Mbit/s. The upgrades are expected to happen over the next few months.
At the same time, Telkom is hiking basic line rental fees by 6%.
The company says it has increased its overall basket of fees by 1,2% on basic voice and data services. The adjustments come into effect on 1 August 2012 and apply to line rentals, outgoing calls, DSL subscriptions and data connectivity services.
Fixed-to-mobile calls have been cut by 3,6% to R1,35/minute for peak-time calls and R1,08/minute for off-peak calls. This is far less than this year’s reduction in the termination rates the mobile operators charge to carry calls onto their networks, meaning Telkom is hanging on to a healthy slice of the margin benefits of the cuts.
Prepaid local calls increase by 5% but long-distance calls remain unchanged.
Installation charges will be increased by 6% for post-paid, prepaid, ISDN and DSL services.
On Telkom’s Closer calling plans, the monthly subscription for Closer 1 will increase to R167, Closer 2 will increase to R185 and Closer 3 will increase to R341.
Although international calls will not increase overall, tariffs to certain destinations will increase and others will decrease. Calls to certain destinations, including the UK and the US, will remain unchanged.
“As competition in the industry heats up, Telkom continues to compete, and ultimately promote affordable telecommunications access,” the company’s MD for consumer services and retail, Manelisa Mavuso, says in a statement. — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media
