Parliament - South Africa's three cellphone operators will be called before Parliament's communications committee following complaints of poor customer service and other problems.

Committee chairperson Nat Kekana told MPs on Wednesday he was experiencing shocking problems and had received several complaints from others about the unacceptable quality of service from cellphone operators.

Committee members had been threatening to do something about it for some time and operators would now be called before the committee this parliamentary term to explain themselves.

Consumer organisations and cellphone users would be invited to participate in the hearings, he said.

Among the issues to be raised would be "dropped" calls, poor signals - especially in townships and rural areas - and bad customer service.

"It's about time we deal with all these things," Kekana said.

No date for the hearing has been finalised.

The operators are MTN, Vodacom and Cell-C.