<html><head><style type="text/css"><!-- DIV {margin:0px;} --></style></head><body><div style="font-family:'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "></div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">Hi listers,</div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">Thought of reviving this old thread especially now in view of the expected increases in fuel prices next week that are as a result of the hyped price control formula.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york',
times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">If we where to zero rate the mobile interconnection charges what is likely to be the effect? </div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">We praised the government for coming up with the fuel price control formula which is now, literally, eating us alive, if we allow the same civil servants who formulated the fuel formula to formulate a similar one for voice calls and with time data rates then we might as well say goodbye to the 1/- and 3/- tariffs.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">When the issue of dropping calling rates first reared its ugly head I
indicated that the governments revenue collection mechanism uses what is called a zero sum methodology, as even the Prime Minister reiterated, as he declared a drop in the prices of fuel, that the revenues not collected from fuel will be collected from somewhere else. The moneys not collected from us through airtime will still be collected.</div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><br></div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">The government, like the all mighty God gives with one hand and takes with the other, lets hope that sanity is restored and no one person tries to </font></span><span class="Apple-style-span"
style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif">zero rate </font></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: medium; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">the interconnection charges.</font></span></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">Have a running weekend</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">Regards</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif"
size="3"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif"><br></font></div><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; "> </div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">Robert Yawe</font><br><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">KAY System Technologies Ltd</font><br><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">Phoenix House, 6th Floor</font><br><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200</font><br><font class="Apple-style-span" face="'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif" size="3">Kenya</font><br><br><div style="color: black; font-family: 'times new roman', 'new york', times, serif; font-size: 12pt; ">Tel:
+254722511225, +254202010696<div><br></div><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><br><div style="font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><font size="2" face="Tahoma"><hr size="1"><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">From:</span></b> Eng. Wainaina Mungai <wainaina.mungai@gmail.com><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">To:</span></b> robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Cc:</span></b> KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke><br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sent:</span></b> Tue, 26 April, 2011 21:53:56<br><b><span style="font-weight: bold;">Subject:</span></b> [kictanet] Fwd: Voice charges to fall further with revised rates<br></font><br><div class="gmail_quote">Something for the <b>real</b> "consumer" to celebrate ;-) ....</div><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><br>---------------<br><div>
By MARK OKUTTAH<br>27 April, 2011</div>
<p>
</p><div><p>Safaricom and Telkom Kenya have lost their bid to
stop the reduction of mobile telephony interconnection charges in June,
setting the stage for a further fall in calling rates.</p></div><div><p>Interconnection
charge —which operators pay rival networks for handling their calls—is
set to drop from Sh2.21 per minute to Sh1.44 in July and Sh1.25 in July
2012, giving the operators room to further reduce their per minute voice
charges.</p></div><div><p>In February, Telkom Kenya and Safaricom asked
the government to put on hold for two years the annual reduction of
interconnection charges that started in 2006, arguing that it would
intensify the ongoing price war and hurt the operators’ profits,
jeopardise job security and slow new investments in the local telecom
arena.</p></div><div><p>This prompted the Prime Minister’s office to
form a task force that will determine whether to hold off revising the
charges or let the revisal run as earlier set by the Communications
Commission of Kenya (CCK). The taskforce returned a verdict that charges
should run their course.</p></div><div><p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); ">“</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); "><b>Nothing has changed and
mobile termination rates were done through consultation and they shall
remain as such,</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 0); ">” said Charles Njoroge, Director-General, CCK.</span></p></div><div><p>He
added that the downward fall in the connection charges does imply that
calling rates will fall adding that tariffs are mainly influenced by
market forces.</p></div><div><p>The government’s verdict is a blow to
Telkom Kenya—the operators of the Orange network—and Safaricom who,
unlike their rivals Airtel and Essar, have criticised the free fall in
airtime prices, made possible by the fall in interconnection charges.</p></div><div>The charges dropped to Sh2.21 in July from Sh4.42 in July 2009, giving
Airtel room to set off a vicious price war in Kenya’s voice market that
has seen tariffs fall by more than 50 per cent since August, cutting
subscribers’ monthly budget for airtime by half.</div><div><p>The
interconnection charge has come down from Sh6.28 in July 2007 to Sh2.21
last July and was set to drop to Sh1.44 this year and Sh0.99 in 2013.</p></div><div><p>The
reduction of the interconnection fee was informed by the need to reduce
the cost of calls across networks, which had remained as high as Sh25
in 2007, compared to Sh12 for calls within the same network.</p></div><div><p>This
made it difficult for the small operators to gain market share from
Safaricom, whose stake was about 83 per cent and who effectively used
the high cross-network charges to win subscribers and discourage
subscribers from switching networks.</p><p>.....</p><p><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate+News/Voice+charges+to+fall+further+with+revised+rates/-/539550/1151370/-/qe2ssg/-/index.html">http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Corporate+News/Voice+charges+to+fall+further+with+revised+rates/-/539550/1151370/-/qe2ssg/-/index.html</a><br>
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