FRIDAY, 1.00PM
THE US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has joined the fray over callback operations in South Africa. The commission says it has “serious concerns” over the manner in which the SA Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (Satra) is seeking to ban South African callback operators from offering cheaper international calls to consumers. The FCC is braodly supportive of callback services, but will bar US providers — who dominate the industry — from servicing customers in countries where callback operations have been deemed illegal, if requested to do so and under certain conditions.
Among the conditions is that callback operators affected by laws and regulations against callback services be given prior notice and an opportunity to state their case, before the adoption of such legislation. Assistant chief of the commission’s international bureau, Rod Porter, says that this does not appear to have been the case when Satra announced last month that callback services would be illegal in SA from September 1.
The FCC has briefed Satra on its policies, although Satra has not asked the commission to restrain US callback operators from servicing consumers in SA. The commission has invited any government “which seeks to put US carriers on notice that callback … has been declared expressly illegal in its territory” to submit documentation of its policy for a public file kept at FCC headquarters. No submission has been received from SA.
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