From 1 October 2014, clients of telecoms operator Switch Telecom will pay 26% less to call any mobile number in South Africa, regardless of the time of day.
The operator’s local and national call rates remains unchanged as clients already pay a whopping 45% less compared to the Telkom fixed line rates.
The recent review of mobile termination rates (MTR) has provided telecoms operators with a unique opportunity to help boost the domestic economy by passing on savings to their clients. Call termination rates are applied by both mobile and fixed line operators for connecting calls to each other’s networks. While both mobile and fixed line call termination rates have been reviewed, it is mobile termination rates that have experienced the most significant reductions.
“Telecoms firms are notorious for their patronising overuse of the term ‘valued customer’. Immediately reducing the rate their clients pay to call cell phone numbers will go a long way towards proving that local telcos really do value their customers,” said Gregory Massel, director of Switch Telecom.
Massel continues, “All major operators in the fixed line and mobile space should also be passing on the drop in termination rates to their clients. However, Telkom’s mobile rate is almost three times as much as our new rate and Neotel’s is about twice as much. South Africa’s bad old telecoms days are far from over.”
Switch Telecom is offering the rate reduction across all its billing packages.
“Our clients don’t have to be Einsteins to work out what they pay for telephone calls. Telephony is a basic need and the true costs of making a phone call should always be patently obvious,” Massel says.
Switch Telecom is calling on other operators to come forth with real and easy-to-understand mobile rates reductions in the interests of the hard-pressed South African consumer. Some operators simply hide costs elsewhere. Promotional bundles that offer no transparency and temporary cost savings is a common tactic. Other operators are adjusting local, national and international calling rates upwards to compensate for mobile call rate reductions. Switch Telecom has not increased monthly service fees in over seven years and has only ever decreased its national call rates.
Business clients are even being persuaded to cancel their fixed lines in favour of mobile promotional packages that are very confusing and offer no way of upfront budgeting. One operator offers ‘variable discounts’ based on the time of day and the client’s location. “That’s outrageous,” says Massel. “If billing for phone calls depends on time of day and location, how are you ever supposed to dispute a bill? We’re used to the cellular industry expecting their clients to be mathematicians but to now expect clients to plot their location throughout the day adds a whole new element of absurdity,” he said.
Switch Telecom’s mobile rates reductions appear to be the first announced by a telecoms operator following ICASA’s publication of the new call termination rates. Reducing CTRs should see South Africans paying less to communicate. Now that the Call Termination Regulation has been published, telecoms users are eagerly waiting for operators to reduce their rates.
Switch Telecom’s idea of transparent simplicity is to offer two telephony packages while not differentiating between peak and off-peak calling times or between the different Mobile Operators. “Why should customers have to run their businesses or call their friends at their operator’s convenience? The common practice of charging different call rates after 8pm makes no sense,” says Massel, alluding to the fact that South African telecoms customers have come to accept questionable practices by their providers that should, in 2014, be consigned to the dustbin of telecoms history.
Switch Telecom offers a range of telecoms products and services that provide individuals, small businesses and large corporate customers with cost savings, ease-of-use, quality, manageability and advanced functionality including the ability to switch from other service providers whilst retaining your previous phone number.