Listed telecommunications company Vodacom will appear before the Competition Tribunal on 26 April.

The tribunal said on Wednesday that Gogga Tracking Solutions had brought an interim relief application against Vodacom.

Gogga would ask the tribunal to order Vodacom to sell it data at 19c/MB as this was the same price that Vodacom charged the general public.

In addition, Gogga wanted the tribunal to stop Vodacom from interfering with any of its telecoms facilities provided to customers.

It also wanted Vodacom to refrain from demanding payment for past accounts and expenses incurred — which Gogga disputed.

According to Gogga, it bought Internet access products in bulk, exclusively, from Vodacom during May 2005 and then structured its own packages which were sold competitively into the end-user market.

Gogga submitted that this data was brought at the initial price of 19c/MB from Vodacom. It maintained it introduced various end-user specials to be competitive in the market and that the model used by it became a success and performed extremely well.

Gogga said its competitors at the time were Vodacom, MTN, iBurst and Cell C.

According to Gogga, Vodacom unilaterally stopped the bulk purchasing model in July 2007 claiming it was disrupting the market and was a misuse of its available products.

Gogga said it was also informed by Vodacom that it (Vodacom) was making a loss and could not supply data at that rate any longer.

According to Gogga, the prices were then increased from 19c/MB to 136c/megabyte but were then subsequently reduced to 60c/MB.

Gogga claimed that the wholesale price of the data which Vodacom charged was much higher than the retail price charged to end users.

According to Gogga, the actions of Vodacom resulted in its business suffering and this also had an impact on its customers.

Gogga Tracking claimed that Vodacom also stopped it from activating any Sim cards to end-users for a period of 15 months and that during this time, Vodacom proceeded to enter the very same market.

It is Gogga Tracking’s submission that Vodacom manipulated the prices and effectively stopped it from doing any business due to the fact that its account was in arrears.

Gogga said that it was only allowed to enter the market again after 15 months and by that time, Vodacom had already captured the market.

Vodacom has denied all the allegations brought against it by Gogga. — Sapa