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18 June 2010

Telkom tariff adjustments filed with ICASA today

Telkom's monthly DSL (Digital Symmetrical Line) and Do Broadband subscriptions, monthly Internet subscription charges, post-paid local and long-distance calls, outgoing mobile calls and monthly subscription for Closer 2,3,4 and 5 will all remain unchanged while data tariffs will drop by 2.1% overall in terms of the Company's proposed new tariffs that were filed with the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) today.

Subject to Icasa's approval, Telkom's new tariffs will become effective from 1 August 2010.

In terms of Icasa's Price Control Formula, the allowable overall increase for Telkom's basket of products is 19.3% (including carry-over).

"However, Telkom has decided to file an overall increase of only 0.8% in the interests of customer-centricity as well as our commitment to the process of ensuring affordable telecommunications access in the country," said Nombulelo Moholi, MD of Telkom SA.

Added Moholi: "As we've done over the recent years, Telkom has again ensured that the tariff adjustment filed with Icasa is well below the Consumer Price Index."

In addition to the above-mentioned rate changes, international fixed line outgoing calls to some destinations (including the UK, USA, Australia and China) either remain unchanged or show significant decreases. "Effectively, the overall adjustment for international calls will be 0% but tariffs to certain destinations – such as Zimbabwe and Namibia – will increase," explained Moholi.

She added that outgoing mobile calls as well as calls to Neotel, other licensed operators or OLOs (previously VANS) and Under-serviced Area Licence Operators (USALS) remain unchanged. Furthermore, the unit charge of public payphones will stay unadjusted at 50 cents (including VAT). Changes in the metering periods for public payphone will be implemented in order to introduce a single tariff for local and long distance calls.

PrepaidFone local (0-50km) and long-distance (>50km) calls increase overall by 4.5% while the surcharge for PrepaidFone Waya-Waya will increase by 5 cents per call. PrepaidFone new line and Waya-Waya installations increase by R13.00 to R283.00. The PrepaidFone monthly rental is adjusted by R5.60, the weekly rental increases by R1.29 and the annual (Waya-Waya) rental goes up by R10.00 to R140.00.

Other proposed tariff adjustments will see the TelkomCloser 1 subscription increase by R5.00 while post-paid new line business and residential installations will be adjusted to R491.00 from R468.05. The monthly rental for post-paid analogue lines will increase by R2.30 (residential) and R8.70 (business). It is also proposed that ISDN 2a monthly charges be increased by R11.57 (residential) and R16.07 (business).

"In our drive to make telecommunications more affordable and accessible, while aligning tariffs with costs as well as our endeavour to defend and grow our business, I believe that we have, in general, managed to contain upward tariff adjustments fairly adequately," stated Moholi.

She added that in recent years, Telkom's pricing has been carefully considered, taking the needs of its customers and economies of scale into account. "Keeping the current overall tariff adjustment to a minimum is geared towards making the Company more competitive and ensuring that telecommunications becomes more affordable and accessible."

"Leaving certain prices unchanged will make these services – particularly the Broadband experience – more attractive, affordable and accessible. Having complied with all regulatory prescriptions, Telkom is confident that our proposed price changes will be approved by Icasa," concluded Moholi.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Pynee Chetty

Senior Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel:+27 12 642 1716

Mobile: +27 81 389 7874

Email: chettpr2@telkom.co.za

OR

Leigh-Ann Francis

Specialist: Media Relations

Group Communication

Tel: +27 12 642 1728

Mobile: +27 81 391 4780

Email: francilm@telkom.co.za

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ABOUT TELKOM:

Telkom is a leading communications services provider in South Africa. We had consolidated operating revenue of R16.8 billion and normalised profit after tax of R1, 683 million for the period ended 30 September 2015. Total assets amounted to R41.9 billion and equity attributable to the owners of Telkom to R23.5 billion as of 30 September 2015. The group generated normalised free cash flow of R1.4 billion for the period ended 30 September 2015.

As of 30 September 2015, we had approximately 3.3 million telephone access lines in service and 1,030,441 ports connected via MSAN access. We offer business, residential and payphone customers a wide range of services and products, including:

  • fixed-line retail voice services using PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) lines, including ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) lines, and the sale of subscription based value-added voice services and calling plans;
  • fixed-line customer premises equipment rental and sales services both voice and data needs and these include PABX, Computers, Routers, Modems, Telephone handsets and other ancillary equipment;
  • interconnection services, including terminating and transiting traffic from South African mobile operators, as well as from international operators and transiting traffic from mobile to international destinations;
  • fixed-line data services, including domestic and international data transmission services, such as point-to-point leased lines, ADSL (Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line) services, packet-based services, managed data networking services and internet access and related information technology services;
  • Data Centre Operations includes e-commerce, application service provider, hosting, data storage, e-mail and security services;
  • W-CDMA (Wideband Code Division Multiple Access), a 3G next generation network, including fixed voice services, data services and nomadic voice services;
  • mobile communication services, including voice services, data services and handset sales through our mobile navbar-brand called Telkom Mobile;
  •  information and communication services including cloud services, infrastructure services, workspace services, global service integration management and hardware and network equipment sales locally, in seven African countries, the UK and Dubai through Business Connexion Group; and
  • other services including directory services, through Trudon (Pty) Ltd, wireless data services, through Swiftnet (Pty) Ltd.

Convergence is one of our key strategic initiatives in building a sustainable future for Telkom.  We will lead the provision of converged services in South Africa in support of our mission statement: Seamlessly connecting people to a better life.