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29 January 2014

Telkom welcomes the new Call Termination Rates

Telkom welcomes the new Call Termination Rates (CTRs) issued by the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) on 29 January 2014. CTRs refer to the fee that one network charges another for receiving and terminating calls on its network.

The revised CTRs will substantially contribute to reducing the cost of communication and the consumer will be the biggest beneficiary.

Dr Miriam Altman, Head of Strategy at Telkom said she was encouraged by the introduction of the new Call Termination Rates.

"This brings the market closer to parity in termination rates, supporting the move to convergence between fixed and mobile services. Telkom has for many years subsidised the dominant mobile operators, and this move will begin to level the playing field.

Telkom will pass on reductions to consumers and will communicate these savings once it has fully assessed the impact of the regulations," said Altman.

Following notification from ICASA, the incumbent mobile cellular operators are expected to reduce their Mobile Termination Rate (MTR) from 40c today to 20c as of 1 March 2014. The MTR's for small mobile operators like Cell C and Telkom Mobile will remain at 44c. The fixed termination rate for Telkom remains at 12c in respect of local interconnection for the coming year, while the rate for the national interconnections will fall from 19c to 16c. By March 2017, the call termination rates for the major operators will be unified at 10c, with continued, albeit falling, asymmetry for small mobile and fixed operators.

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.