Statement: Cellphone companies are ripping us off!
Right2Know Gauteng to Picket at MTN tomorrow, 12h00: Vula ‘ma Connexion, Demand the Right to Communicate!
When: Friday, 18 September, 12:00-13:00
Where: MTN Head Offices, 216 14th Avenue Fairland, Roodepoort
Cellphone companies like MTN are ripping us off and we want to put an end to their unethical profiteering. Right2Know is picketing at MTN Head Offices tomorrow at 12h00 to demand a cut in the cost of airtime/data and free SMSes for all, and to call for the transformation of the telecommunications industry and support the Consumer Commission’s challenge to expiring airtime/data.
While this is one of the most economically unequal countries in the world, South Africans pay among the highest rates in the world for telecommunications services, including for airtime and data. This is not acceptable. Such exorbitant mobile phone charges negatively affect our right to communicate. The right to communicate is central to our right to know.
Right2Know recently released the Lived Costs of Communications research report. Compiled by the Link Centre at WITS University, the report details the real experiences of the everyday consumer in South Africa, and how the high costs imposed by cellular communications companies impact on the daily lives of ordinary people. The findings clearly demonstrate how the astronomically high pricing structures of South African telecommunications companies seriously affect the financial stability of many people, and also infringe on their basic and fundamental communications rights.
Every person in South Africa has the right to access and impart information and to freedom of expression – rights that are enshrined in the constitution and which form the bedrock of a democratic, transparent and accountable democracy. Yet the high cost of communications in South Africa is a key obstacle to realising these rights.
More Transparent and Just Pricing
Cell phone companies are notoriously opaque about their costs and prices. The myriad of ever changing cell phone packages and so-called “free” add-ons make it almost impossible for users to compare options.
Generally, people on prepaid contracts pay more per unit for airtime and data than people on post-paid contracts. As a result poor people (more likely to be prepaid users) are subsiding richer users (more likely to be post-paid).
We demand more transparent and just pricing of mobile services.
Free SMSes Now!
A 2012 study estimated that an SMS cost mobile phone companies about 2.6c. At this conservative estimate cell companies are making up to 3000% of profit on an SMS. With the rise of text messaging service like Whatsapp available to people with smartphones, the profiteering on SMSes take place at the expense of those who can least afford it.
We demand that SMSes should be offered at no cost immediately as they cost the operators almost nothing to transmit.
‘Stolen’ Airtime & Data
Airtime and data bundles should not expire if they are unused. We demand that unused airtime and data be carried over as stipulated by the Consumer Protection Act. We welcome the National Consumer Commission probe into disappearing airtime and data. The Commission must not allow unethical behaviour by cell phone companies to go unpunished.
Break the Cell Phone Monopolies
At the root of the problem is the structure of SA’s telecommunications industry. The drive towards privatisation in the 1990s has placed our right to communicate in the hands of a monopolistic handful of powerful corporations that wield massive power in relation to government’s capacity to regulate the industry. Right2Know is committed to building a strong public voice that can ensure government roll back of the cell phone monopolies.
An important step in this process is the allocation of the digital dividend – spectrum to be freed up by digital migration in the coming years. We demand that this spectrum is not auctioned to the highest bidder. This will only strengthen the current monopolies. We demand that the digital dividend must be used in the public interest, including the delivery of free public Wi-Fi and the support of community owned telecommunication projects like the Zenzeleni Network currently serving communities in the Eastern Cape.
The right to communicate is a basic human right. Section 16.1b of our Bill of Rights gives everyone the freedom to receive or impart information or ideas. For many people our rights only exist on paper, but almost all of South Africans have cellphones that could make our right to communicate real. We urge the public to join us in the fight against telecommunication profiteering!
