Earlier this year the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) published its findings in an ongoing regulatory process review in terms of call termination rates.

Now the body is set to conduct a cost modelling exercise as regards call termination rates and the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (ISPA) has welcomed this.

This investigation comes after ICASA resolved to do a detailed investigation into rates for terminating local calls. The authority will require licensees to use the principle of reciprocity to negotiate down international termination rates.

“The international termination rates charged by local licensees may not be less than the domestic regulated termination rate or higher than the international termination rate offered by their counterpart – meaning that the difference between domestic termination rates and international termination rates must be fair and reasonable,” ICASA councillor, Charley Lewis said.

ISPA says that these international call termination rates is of particular importance for international call termination rates – i.e. when a caller calls South Africa from another country – which are largely unregulated.

“Consumers, for their part, are receiving international calls with incorrect caller ID numbers that are frequently mistaken for spam and unknowingly paying more to call overseas than they should. For example, calls to mobile numbers in Europe are typically between R 2.00 and R 22.00 per minute, however, once reciprocity provisions come into place, these could drop to as low as R 0.20 per minute,” explains the association.

ICASA is yet to publish a notice of intention to initiate the next phase of the review.

We’re with ISPA in hoping that ICASA can help regulate international call termination rates but we aren’t expecting this to happen in the near future.

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