Parliament, Thursday, 3 August 2017 – The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) appeared before the Select Committee on Communications and Public Enterprises yesterday to brief the Committee on the current status of voice and data prices in South Africa, looking at regional trends and providing the way forward with regard to the ways of reducing the cost to communicate.
Icasa admitted in its presentation to the Committee that the current data prices are very expensive. According to the Icasa presentation, South Africa is the second most expensive country when it comes to data pricing among the Brics countries, after Brazil, that is Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
The Committee Chairperson, Ms Ellen Prins, asked Icasa if there is investigation on price fixing initiated by Icasa. Responding to that question, Icasa said it has published its intention to conduct an inquiry to determine the priority markets in the electronic communications sector.
Icasa also said it is consulting with other regulators such as the National Consumer Commission and the Competition Commission to find ways of reducing data prices.
Although the service providers were represented in the meeting, they did not make presentations on the matter of data prices. As its next step on the matter of expensive data prices, the Committee resolved to invite the service providers to give their side of the story on the matter.
“We are going to invite the service providers to appear before the Committee so that we hear from them as well,” said Ms Prins.
ISSUED BY PARLIAMENTARY COMMUNICATION SERVICES ON BEHALF OF THE CHAIRPERSON OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC ENTERPRISES MS ELLEN PRINS.
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