Parliament’s portfolio committee on communications & digital technologies has invited written submissions on the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, opening the public phase of a legislative process that could reshape how spectrum, roaming and wholesale access are regulated in South Africa.

Interested parties have until 4pm on Friday, 21 August 2026 to make written submissions. Those wishing to make an oral presentation to the committee are asked to indicate this in their submission.

The bill was tabled in the national assembly by communications minister Solly Malatsi on 22 April 2026 and gazetted two days earlier. It is the first time this version of the reform has reached the parliamentary hearings stage.

An earlier draft was published for comment in June 2023, and the legislation traces back to the Competition Commission’s data services market inquiry, which found that weak competition was keeping data prices high.

The bill’s most consequential provision is the “use it or share it” principle for radio frequency spectrum. Where spectrum assigned from 10 December 2021 onwards remains unused in any area for two years – measured from the act’s commencement for existing assignments, or from the date of assignment for future ones – Icasa must step in and allow another licensee to share it.

Community networks and small and medium enterprises should be given preference as secondary licensees, and they would pay no spectrum fees for the first 12 months. If no secondary licensee takes up the unused spectrum, Icasa may withdraw it from the original holder altogether.

‘Use it or share it’

The mechanism reaches back into licences already issued. The memorandum accompanying the bill is explicit that it overrides the five-year utilisation window granted in the January 2024 700MHz, 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz licences, on the reasoning that the longer window was only conceded to accommodate the delayed analogue switch-off – a constraint the department now considers largely resolved. That makes the provision a material variation of licence terms for the operators that won high-demand spectrum, and a likely flashpoint in submissions.

Research published this week by network measurement firm Opensignal found that South Africans spent just 3.7% of their connected time on 5G in the first quarter of 2026, with the low-band spectrum best suited to extending coverage still running almost entirely on 4G – precisely the kind of underused assignment the “use it or share it” clause is designed to target.

A second pillar is a new framework for roaming and mobile virtual network operators. The bill creates the concept of an “access provider” – a licensee with mobile network coverage of at least 90% of the population, which in practice means Vodacom and MTN – and obliges it to provide national roaming and MVNO services on request. Agreements must be concluded within 60 days, and where the parties cannot agree, Icasa must determine the terms, including by interrogating the underlying cost of the service.

Underpinning both is a shift in how wholesale prices are regulated. The bill changes Icasa’s mandate from one where it may prescribe wholesale pricing rules to one where it must, within 18 months of commencement. Those rules must be cost-orientated and, for designated essential facilities, reflect cost plus a reasonable return. Icasa is also required, finally, to publish a list of essential facilities within 12 months – an obligation that has sat unfulfilled in the act since 2005.

The bill further empowers Icasa to launch competition market inquiries on its own initiative and allows the regulator and the Competition Commission to enforce each other’s findings under a formalised concurrent jurisdiction agreement.

Read: Icasa caught in the political crossfire over Starlink

The hearings also open a potential avenue for an unrelated but politically charged amendment. In May, Icasa told Malatsi, the mister, that it could not recognise equity equivalent investment programmes – an alternative to the requirement that licensees be 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups, widely seen as a route to licensing Elon Musk’s Starlink – without an amendment to the ECA.

Malatsi has said the government will now pursue that legislative change. As introduced, the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill does not deal with ownership or equity equivalence; it is confined to spectrum, roaming, wholesale pricing and competition. Whether the equity equivalence question is folded into this bill as it moves through parliament, or pursued separately, is likely to be among the more closely watched aspects of the process. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media