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Telephone firms differ on Macra ruling
By
Ayam Maeresa - 05-12-2002 |
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Telephone operators are divided on the new ruling by the Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra) on how much fees they should pay each other for calls across networks.
Macra passed the ruling to solve a long standing dispute concerning interconnection tariffs that led one of the private players getting a court injunction last year against an earlier ruling on the issue.
The new ruling says that US$0.08 (K6.72) per minute will be charged on mobile to mobile and fixed line to mobile connections. A call from a mobile to a fixed line will now attract US$0.05 (K4.20) tariff, said a source.
The rates are effective from February next year.
Currently the three operators—Malawi Telecommunications Limited (MTL) and two cellular phone service providers, Celtel Malawi Limited and Telekom Networks Malawi (TNM)—are following a ‘sender keeps all’ arrangement where no tariffs are paid for carrying each other’s traffic.
A third mobile phone company Malawi Mobile Limited is expected to enter the market early next year.
Under the new arrangement, companies will pay each other the difference in sums of money for traffic carried on behalf of each other. The industry fears that the new arrangement would translate into operators increasing their call rates.
Celtel managing director Tim Bahrani said in an interview his company has no problem with the new ruling.
Celtel clashed with TNM late last year after the latter cut off access into its network over differences concerning the fees.
“As long as it works, it’s good to us,” said Bahrani.
He said the ruling by Macra is in line with the rest of the world. He said although the cost for consumers calling mobile phones from fixed lines has gone up, the move has no major cost increases on mobile users.
TNM chief executive officer Nasir Baharom said in a separate interview the ruling has taken them by surprise. He said Macra did not consult them on the matter.
“They have taken our rights to negotiate. Obviously we will go back to them for clarification on how they arrived at those calculations,” said Baharom.
Macra officials declined to comment. .
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