Vodacom and Telkom: briefing

The Chairperson's Comments on Vodacom
 

There will be speculations on what lies behind this major growth of the wireless segment but the majority of our people are still without basic telephony. The gap between those who have a fixed Telkom line, a mobile phone and those who have no dial tone is a major concern, we must ways to narrow this gap

The introduction of a new cellular entrant demonstrates the confidence that South Africa has in the growth of the cellular market. However, we should be concern about the competitive environment in which this new entrant is going to be introduced. We need to ask ourselves if there is a need for intervention or are negotiations sufficient to regulate the entry of the new operator? SATRA should be able to provide answers on the steps that were taken to facilitate the entry of the new cellular player.

The introduction of competition and the availability of more services often lead to the dropping of prices, which is of great benefit to the consumer. However, the operators must inform the consumer about pricing and the products that are available for the potential subscriber to make informed choices. These issues are important to protect consumers and ensure that there is no anti- competitive behaviour by operators.

Policy and regulation must assist to maintain a high standard of services and to measure the performance of various service providers. There is a need to protect consumers and subscribers from unfair practices and low quality of services. Many operators and service providers have call centres that service customers. On average complaints are speedily addressed, however there are serious problems regarding the quality of services, especially the drop-calls, sound quality and the accuracy of the billing.

South Africa needs a strong consumer culture were consumers of services are aware of their rights, their complaints are speedily addressed and there is greater customer satisfaction.