The long-awaited policy directive issued by Communications and Digital Technologies Minister, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, to ICASA on Friday is a welcome development that promises to meet some of the pent-up demand for spectrum in the telecommunications sector.
This move will also diversify the telecommunications sector, which would lead to increased competition and potentially cheaper data costs.
Billions have been lost in revenue as government repeatedly failed to direct ICASA to assign spectrum for the last eight years. This stifled economic expansion, sector growth, squandered continental market leadership, and limited countless opportunities for people and enterprises as our telecommunications industry faced rising network deployment costs and stunted growth.
The latest policy directive does, however, indicate a pragmatic approach on the part of government to balance competing interests of the large network operators with calls for easier access and greater inclusivity from emerging and small businesses.
The directive suggests that a large portion of high demand spectrum be made available to a yet-to-be-formed Wholesale Open Access Network (WOAN). Significant question marks remain however around the composition of the WOAN, including ownership, operational model, funding, and time to market. Consideration of the amount and band of spectrum assigned to the WOAN is thus premature and must not affect the release of spectrum not earmarked for the entity.
Regardless of the readiness of the WOAN, the Democratic Alliance (DA) urges ICASA to act immediately in line with the policy directive which states that spectrum assignment processes to the WOAN and industry at large must begin simultaneously.
The Minister has given ICASA high-level policy direction, which the regulator is only obligated to consider. ICASA now needs to implement the directive independently, in the best interests of the sector and the country and conduct their own due diligence as they are obliged to do.
The ball is now firmly in ICASA’s court. Nothing stands in the way of ICASA assigning additional spectrum without delay. As the process of consultation, award processes and spectrum assignment is a relatively lengthy one, it must begin straight away.
Spectrum must be made available to the market immediately in a completely transparent and competitive bidding process and high-demand spectrum assigned to mobile network operators and other electronic communications network service licensees as quickly as possible.
Free the spectrum and set the sector free.