Capture Date: Sat, 17/10/2009 - 04:12
CHANNELS:
Pretoria - The meeting between cellphone giants and Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Communications will continue today.
They are discussing the state's proposal to cut mobile operator's interconnection costs before Christmas.
Interconnection rates are what cell phone companies pay each other for switching between networks.
Members of Parliament, who believe the rates to be exorbitant, hope that if the rates are dropped from 1.25 cents a minute to about 60 cents per minute, the savings would be passed onto consumers.
About 22 oral submissions are expected to be made over the two-day meeting.
Meanwhile, Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda has issued a directive to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to prescribe regulations for establishing a framework for interconnection services.