The Competition Commission has finally laid down the law and given major mobile service providers two months to reduce costs or face prosecution.
Johannesburg, South Africa – The #DataMustFall campaign is finally paying off, and the competition commission has done something that will really benefit the South African public. In a report published on Scribd, a comparison was done between data costs in South Africa versus the rest of Africa.
The report has focussed on mobile data suppliers MTN and Vodacom. Shown in USD, below is the scary difference in data prices across Africa, based on the cost of 1 gigabyte.
The competition commission has stated that the two companies, which have the highest market value, will need to reduce their costs within the next two months.
Commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele discussed what the new ruling means for South African based mobile data providers. Now South Africa’s most impoverished citizens can get the much-needed financial break. Hopefully, the companies take this seriously and do some good for the South African public.
“We believe that an appropriate regulation is reasonable. How this will be achieved will be explained as we give more details on this report.”
“It was clear, according to the findings, that we have a competition problem in the market and that prices are higher than they should be compared to elsewhere in the world.”
“We believe on the basis of evidence that there is scope for reduction of prices between 30% and 50%. The failure of reduction within two months will lead to prosecution for excessive pricing,”
This is a developing story, stay tuned as we see if the two companies will adhere to the price reduction recommendations.