Question NW2432 to the Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services
31 August 2017 - NW2432
van der Merwe, Ms LL to ask the Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services
Whether his department has made any progress in the past 12 months to reduce the cost to communicate in South Africa, which remains amongst the highest in the world; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
Reply:
I have been informed by the Department as follows:
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is currently working on transparency mechanisms to regulate the expiry of data bundles. Initial interventions will ensure provisions to ensure that all segments of data bundles do not automatically expire after 30 days but have a cascading scale as proposed in ICASA’s Draft Regulations:
1MB to 50MB: 10 days
50MB to 500MB: 30 days
500MB to 1GB: 60 days
1GB to 5GB: 90 days
5GB to 10GB: 180 days
10GB to 20GB: 12 months
>20GB: 24 months
In terms of the Draft Regulations:
Industry will be required to inform consumers as data gets depleted due to use, and also allow them an option to choose whether to purchase more data bundles as opposed to the usual default to out of bundle rates. The final regulations will be in place by the end of October 2017.
The Competition Commission has announced the commencement of its inquiry into the ICT market and the data market in particular (from 18 September 2017 to 31 August 2018). The intervention of the Commission will include the following actions:
(a) Obtain a clear understanding of the data services value chain, including interactions and commercial relationships between different levels of the value chain as well as the relationship with other parts of the ICT sector and the broader economy;
(b) Assess the state of competition throughout the value chain in order to identify areas of market power where consumers may be exploited and to identify any structural, behavioural and regulatory factors that may influence pricing;
(c) Benchmark South African data pricing against those of other countries; and
(d) Establish whether data supply quality and coverage is adequate by international standards and the country's developmental needs.
Approved/Not Approved
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Dr Siyabonga Cwele, MP
Minister of Telecommunications and Postal Services
Date: