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Telecom Fiji and Digicel (Fiji) Ltd have signed an interim contractual interconnectivity agreement that will see both parties agree to the Commerce Commission’s interim interconnection rates.
Commerce Commission chairman Dr Mahendra Reddy confirmed this to FijiLive today saying the Commission had set the rate last Friday and had informed the two parties.
The deadline for the interim interconnection rate was May 1.
“This agreement asks the Commission to set the interim rate, which both parties will agree to. We have set the rate and now both the parties have to abide by it,” Reddy told FijiLive.
“We can’t say what the rates will be but we do hope lower interconnection rate will lead to a lower retail rate,” he said.
Reddy said all parties including Telecom Fiji, Digicel and Vodafone have interconnection arrangements.
He said an interconnection arrangement was underway for Vodafone.
“We are working to review all interconnection rates. All will be reviewed in due course,” Reddy said.
“An appropriate interconnection rate will play a very important role in ensuring that the retail rate is a competitive rate. So we do hope that the consumers can get more competitive rates.”
Reddy said this arrangement would mean a fair access to the benefits of competition for consumers in the telecommunication industry.
He said telecommunication cost were important and significant components of the overall cost of any business organisation.
“We can only have competitive rates if we have true competition in the retail market,” Reddy said.
“One of the factors that allow full competition in the retail market is interconnection rates amongst the players.”
“This is the rate charged by one network provider to another to allow its call to terminate on its network. Therefore, interconnection rates need to be based on cost modelling,” he added.
Questions forwarded to Telecom Fiji and Digicel remain unanswered.
