South Africa's regulatory environment and proper infrastructure hinders lower telecoms fees, while exorbitant fees could lead to decelerated growth, global management consulting and technology services group Accenture said on Thursday.
Director, Accenture's communications and high tech, Mark Joseph, said that a debate around the high cost of telecommunications services was long overdue.
However, he added that such a debate should seek to address the problem that had resulted in such high costs.
"In my view, the drive to reduce telecommunications costs must take into account factors such as regulatory environment and lack of proper infrastructure, which play a part in the pricing structure of telecommunications companies," Joseph said.
"We need to realise the crucial role that a balanced and effective regulatory process plays in driving down the cost of telecommunications.
"Our regulators should be stern in creating an environment, which is conducive to a fair and competitive landscape. In turn, a competitive telecommunications landscape will encourage telecommunications diffusion and will certainly lower fees as well as accelerate the adoption of ICT by lower-income enterprises and individuals," he said.
Accenture said that regulators should seek to address critical factors including the dominance of incumbent operators, licence fees, unfair competitive practices and the lack of transparency in the sector.
"Having said this, the operators have significant challenges to deal with such as poor infrastructure nationally and across the continent.
"To date, this has been the single biggest challenge facing telecommunications operators in emerging markets.
"Despite being the fastest-growing telecommunications region in the world, Africa's broadband potential has been constrained by costly international bandwidth and patchy infrastructure, which has resulted in impeding development and investor deterrence," Joseph said.
Accenture pointed to an attempt to address such challenges, including various initiatives such as the submarine cables designed to connect Africa to the rest of the world.
"Initiatives such as SEACOM, SAT3/SAFE and EASSY have gained significant government support.
"However, governments should be cautious and not allow such support to hinder the implementation of privately initiated projects in an attempt to guarantee the success of the publicly funded ones," Accenture said.
"The submarine cables are also likely to increase collaboration among operators.
"In the meantime, operators will have to adopt effective ways of sharing infrastructure such as base-stations to minimise their operating fees.
"There is massive potential for growth in emerging markets, but exorbitant fees could decelerate such growth," Joseph concluded.
