7 November, 2011.

In its bid to foster ICT development in the country, the Commerce Commission of Fiji has announced new interconnection rates for telecommunication operators in Fiji.

Announcing the new rates this afternoon, commission chairman Dr Mahendra Reddy said for all calls terminating into a mobile network, the interconnection rates is reduced from FJD$0.17 to FJD$0.13, a reduction of 23.5 per cent.

He said the 23.5 per cent reduction in termination rates will bring down retail rates.

For all incoming international calls, the terminating rate onto a local network operator has increased from US$0.165 to US$0.220.

Dr Reddy said the terminating rates for all incoming international calls, FJD$0.06 will be paid by the operators to government in the form of ICT levy to support government’s ICT penetration work.

“For the last ten months, with an ICT levy of FJD$0.03, we collected FJD$3 million and with the increased rate, we expect a total of FJD$8 million for next year only,” he said.

It is from parties calling from outside Fiji.

In addition, the incoming international calls which one operator hands over to another, apart from the interconnection rates the handing over party will pay a Special International Call Handling Levy of FJD$0.09 to the network operator on which the call is terminated.

Dr Reddy said with the news changes coming into effect from November 17, 2011 the telecom providers bringing international minutes to make increased revenue, payment from network operators will boost government financially to undertake ICT penetration activities.

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