Competition is the most effective way of ensuring innovation and lower prices for consumers. While the internet landscape has changed a lot in South Africa over the last decade and prices have been falling, we are still paying among the highest rates in the world. The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) can help drive mobile data prices down by forcing cellular network operators like MTN and Vodacom to compete.
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ISPA, the Internet Service Providers’ Association of SA, who represents the country’s internet service providers (ISPs), has stated that “while there is ineffective competition, there is no lack of potential competitors.” ISPA has traditionally been limited to competing on copper and fibre networks, which is what the organisation wants to change.
It says that a customer mustn’t be limited to buying mobile data from the current network they are subscriber to. Some devices have tried to solve this by including dual-SIM functionality, but ISPA is of the opinion that consumers must have free choice of where their data comes from.
“Mobile users should be provided with a choice of resellers, all competing to provide the best data deal,” it stated. “This is the situation with the open-access fibre network model that has delivered high-quality broadband at affordable rates in SA.”
This conglomerate of South Africans ISPs want to be able to compete in the provisioning of corporate mobile data services. It therefore supports the Icasa proposal for the wholesale market.
“ISPs would welcome being able to service the corporate [Access Point Name] and consumer market aggressively, but when approaching the mobile network operators, no wholesale products are available,” ISPA stated. “Or they are quoted a wholesale rate that is above the retail rate. This makes it impossible to compete on price with the incumbents.”
The newly proposed regulations define wholesale and retail markets for the provision of mobile broadband services, which are based on Icasa’s finding these markets are suffering from insufficient competition.
