South Africa’s biggest telecommunications operators will square off with Icasa at public hearings in Midrand on Monday and Tuesday, after formal submissions revealed near-unanimous industry criticism of the regulator’s draft rapid deployment regulations – rules meant to accelerate broadband roll-out that operators warn could achieve the opposite.

The draft regulations, gazetted on 10 April, are intended to create a uniform framework for network deployment, covering permits, access to land, compensation and dispute resolution. But the written submissions, published on Icasa’s website, complain that the rules regulate licensees – who want to build – while leaving untouched the municipal wayleave bottleneck that actually throttles deployment.

The Association of Comms & Technology (ACT), which represents the six biggest operators, calls the absence of binding municipal turnaround times and a deemed-approval mechanism “the most significant gap” in the draft – “the principal systemic failure that the regulatory framework was intended to resolve”.

Its submission, signed by ACT CEO Nomvuyiso Batyi, says operators wait six to 12 months to connect a business customer in some metros, with wayleave costs ranging from R8 000 to “hundreds of thousands of rand”, including “arbitrary annual ‘maintenance’ fees for which no service is provided”.

Vodacom’s submission makes the same charge: the draft “places increased procedural, reporting and compliance obligations on licensees, while the core challenges … remain largely unaddressed”. The Internet Service Providers’ Association says the draft regulations “are more likely to slow down deployment through imposing further obligations on licensees”.

GIS database

Both ACT and Vodacom point to the EU’s Gigabit Infrastructure Act as the model to adopt: binding four-month permit deadlines and approval deemed granted if authorities miss them; ACT also wants the EU’s cost-capped fee principle imported, along with a 30-working-day wayleave standard.

The submissions confirm the industry’s early warnings about the draft’s national infrastructure database, reported by TechCentral in April. Regulation 7 requires every licensee to submit geo-referenced GIS data on fibre routes, ducts, poles, towers and base stations twice a year, along with address-level service availability and – most contentiously – forward-looking roll-out plans, on pain of a fine of up to R1-million.

Read: Icasa’s blunt message to Starlink and other satellite operators

Telkom’s submission, signed by legal and regulatory affairs group executive Nozipho Mngomezulu, warns the database “compromises the security of Telkom’s network if exposed in the public where construction mafia associates, anarchists and spies could use it in nefarious ways”.

ACT raises national security concerns, citing Icasa’s own reporting on infrastructure theft and vandalism. Ispa says it is “unreasonable to expect licensees to submit commercially sensitive information” without knowing who will access it and under what safeguards – and goes further, arguing that GIS mapping falls outside the scope of section 21 of the Electronic Communications Act entirely and should be dealt with in a separate instrument.

The complaint is almost universal: the draft regulations are silent on who may access the data, for what purpose and with what protections. The six-month implementation window is attacked as unworkable – Telkom calls it “completely unrealistic” and ACT wants it extended to 12 months – and the R1-million penalty condemned as disproportionate.

Telkom goes furthest on process, arguing the regulations should be paused entirely. It pointed to the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill – whose proposed section 21A would empower the minister of cooperative governance to make binding rules for municipalities – and to communications minister Solly Malatsi’s draft rapid deployment policy direction, gazetted in March and still unresolved.

Finalising Icasa’s rules before those processes conclude, Telkom argues, risks entrenching a framework aimed at the wrong party: Icasa’s jurisdiction runs to licensees, not to the municipalities where the real friction lies. Cooperative governance’s standard wayleave by-laws, published in 2023, have been adopted by only four municipalities, according to Telkom.

ACT asks why Icasa published its draft before the ministerial policy process concluded, warning of “regulatory misalignment”, while Ispa says it wants Icasa to state publicly how the policy direction will affect finalisation.

Not everything is contested. ACT calls the GIS mapping concept “significant and commendable” in principle, Ispa’s members support broadband mapping, and there is broad backing for structured dispute resolution and infrastructure lifecycle rules. The fight is over sequencing and safeguards.

‘Rent-seeking behaviour’

Vodacom argues the database should be pursued only once the approvals bottleneck is fixed, and compensation to landowners should be limited to demonstrable loss rather than recurring “rental-type” payments. Telkom wants trench-sharing and co-build arrangements to remain voluntary, warning of “rent-seeking behaviour” by parties holding wayleaves.