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No. 37261
GOVERNMENT GAZETTE, 24 JANUARY 2014
after ICASA has forced the operators to lower their termination rates through a glide path to
40c for established SMP players and 44c for the smaller players. ICASA has recently
announced intentions to regulate lower termination rates.
The practice of setting on-net and off-net prices has come into focus as the discussions on
the competitiveness of the mobile market unfold. The mobile operators charge differently for
calls generated and terminated within their networks as opposed to calls generated within
their networks and terminated in other networks. This practice, while beneficial to the
subscribers who pay reduced tariffs for the calls, has the potential of locking in subscribers
to particular networks and therefore affecting competition, more so if on-net call rates are
even lower than the termination rates.
5.3.4 Services and barriers to entry
5.3.4.1 Consumer protection regarding wireless services
There have been a number of stories in the media about subscribers falling victim to some
service providers' gimmicks to make them take up subscriptions without their expressed
consent. In some cases it was reported that a service provider got people to accept
subscriptions and then began debiting them for services that they were not aware, were
subscription services. The service provider would only reimburse the victims once they acted
to stop the service.
Despite the existence of WASPA (Wireless Application Service Providers Association), an
umbrella body that regulates the service providers in terms of a voluntary code of conduct,
incidents such as theseare on the increase. This raises the issue of how subscribers can use
theregulatory structures to protect themselves. How can ICASA cooperate with WASPA in
order to coordinate efforts to protect consumers from scams?
5.4 Digital Age
5.4.1 Major Emerging Issues
The electronic communications environment, like other market segments of the
communications sector, is subject to technological changes due to the convergence that has
enabled different services to be delivered using the same infrastructure and to be received
by the same devices. The disruptive and beneficiary effects of this convergence are
discussed in detail in the various sections of this document. Suffice it to indicate that the
policy and regulatory approaches must now be reviewed to accommodate the changes that
have occurred in order to provide regulatory certainty and a market structure that will allow
for innovation and introduction of new services. In summary, the evolution of the electronic
communications sector will be influenced by several factors:
5.4.1.1 Shift to IP-based technologies
The shift to IP-based technologies has two major implications for the market structure and
competition in the electronic communications sector. The IP-based technologies make it
possible to distribute many applications over a single network. In the IP-based environment
there is no longer any need to build distinct and separate networks for voice, data,audio and
video. This significantly decreases costs associated with network roll-out, and network
operations.
On the application side, the IP-based technologies impact positively in that they remove the
need for specialised networks for application providers. New service providers are able to
enter the market or create a new market by connecting to any available IP-based network. It
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