South Africa's Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) has banned the increase of mobile data prices and mobile number portability during the nationwide lockdown, reports ITWeb. The government has taken a strong stance against excessive price hikes by service retailers from provinces across the country since the outbreak of coronavirus (Covid-19).
The communications ministry has published a gazette of critical interventions (directions) the department is taking to alleviate the impact of Covid-19 on the communications and digital technologies sector. The gazette states that no licensed entity may effect any prices increases nor perform mobile number portability for the duration of the Covid-19 national disaster.
Communications and digital technologies minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams first indicated her department’s plans to prohibit price increments and MNP at a media briefing about coronavirus in Pretoria on 25 March.
Ndabeni-Abrahams said that during such precarious times, people want to "exploit the opportunity in order to enrich themselves". Banning mobile number portability is to avoid scammers or minimise the impact of scammers, she said. She said the chances of scammers calling people to request personal details, disguised as number porting, are likely to increase during such times.
