Icasa has 30 days in which to act.

The notice, published in the Government Gazette yesterday afternoon, calls for the regulatory authority to take into consideration the benchmark study undertaken in 2007.

The directive also calls upon Icasa to lower the interconnection rates in particular the mobile termination rate to a cost-base rate.

The notice found that the South African telecommunication costs were high in comparison to Brazil, Chile, Korea, India and Malaysia. It also found that the key contributor to South Africa's mobile call tariffs was excessive interconnection rates and mobile call termination rates.

Members of the public are also invited to send written submissions to the Communications Department. - BuaNews