The Competition Tribunal has approved a consent agreement between the Competition Commission and telecommunications group MTN on data pricing.

In terms of the agreement, MTN will reduce the data prices of its 30-day prepaid bundles across channels; offer all its customers a daily free capped data bundle; and offer capped zero-rated access to certain PBO and other websites, subject to a maximum of 500 websites, focusing on education, healthcare and job recruitment through MTN's own website.

MTN implemented the daily lifeline package on its Ayoba chat platform, media and channels functionalities in March and implemented the Ayoba browser functionality on June 1.

The group has also committed to enabling all its customers, at no charge, to manage their data use through an MTN USSD and on MTN’s website.

Further, MTN will implement the retail price reductions across all its retail channels and communicate these reductions to all channel partners to have these reductions applied across all MTN channels.

The agreement follows the commission’s data services market inquiry, its resulting findings and recommendations as well as discussions between the commission and MTN.

Following the publication of the final report, the commission and MTN engaged in discussions to reach an agreement on mutually acceptable solutions aimed at addressing the concerns raised in the final report.

The commission published its final report in December 2019, finding that data prices in South Africa were high, noting several recommendations relevant to the consent agreement which it subsequently concluded with MTN.

These included recommendations in relation to tariff levels, data bundles, price discrimination strategies that adversely affect lower income consumers, a lifeline package for all prepaid subscribers and zero-rating of certain content, among other recommendations.