Communications minister Solly Malatsi has asked the sector regulator, Icasa, to rewrite South Africa’s 16-year-old rules on how operators share infrastructure and has set out principles for long-delayed regulations meant to speed up the building of broadband networks.
The policy direction, signed on 19 October and published in the Government Gazette on Tuesday, asks Icasa to review the Facilities Leasing Regulations of 2010 and to develop rapid deployment regulations.
“The policy direction is ultimately aimed at reducing the cost of broadband communication, and ensuring all South Africans enjoy meaningful connectivity by eliminating cumbersome and fragmented administrative compliances which affect the pace of infrastructure building,” Malatsi said in a statement on Thursday.
On leasing, which governs how operators rent towers, ducts and other infrastructure from one another, Icasa is directed to prescribe a list of “essential facilities” and to consider “prescribing wholesale rates”. It is also to improve the timeframes for negotiating, concluding and implementing leasing agreements, and to strengthen monitoring and enforcement, including the filing of all agreements with the regulator, which is already required in legislation.
Neither the list nor the rates are new ideas. The Electronic Communications Act has required Icasa to prescribe a list of essential facilities, such as local loops and facilities connected to submarine cables, since 2005. It also allows Icasa to set a framework for wholesale rates for specified facilities, taking into account the act’s competition provisions. The 2010 regulations do neither.
Duplicated networks
Malatsi is also pursuing the point through legislation. His Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, tabled in April, would require Icasa to publish the list within 12 months and, within 18 months, to set pricing rules that are cost-orientated and, for essential facilities, reflect cost plus a reasonable return, TechCentral reported in June.
The regulations need updating because the act’s chapter on facilities leasing was amended in 2014 and courts have since ruled on how it applies, the direction says. Its explanatory note adds that the impact of the 2010 regulations on network deployment and affordable access “has not been assessed”.
The direction also takes aim at duplicated networks. Unnecessary duplication of facilities should be discouraged where existing facilities are available, “in particular where a licensee is, or licensees are, by virtue of its or their extensive national networks, in a position to make access available”. It accepts that duplication may be justified for commercial reasons, including redundancy, quality of service and service differentiation.
Icasa is asked to set up a process for declaring disputes between licensees, or between licensees and third parties such as landowners. A dispute would have to be declared at least 14 calendar days before a licensee starts work that needs access to land. The licensee “may not continue to deploy broadband infrastructure while awaiting the resolution of the dispute”, though Icasa should consider an urgent interim procedure to decide whether deployment must be suspended.
Landowners cannot be forced into the process. Disputes with them may be referred to Icasa only if they agree, and disputes over compensation for damage go to court. The ministry’s statement mentioned the voluntary process for landowners, but not the pause on deployment.
A map of the networks
Icasa is also to build a central geographic information system (GIS) database of the country’s networks and infrastructure “as a priority”. Licensees would be required to provide their data and to update it at least annually, and Icasa would verify it independently. Non-licensees could contribute voluntarily, and access would be regulated to protect sensitive information.
Icasa is already moving on this. In April, it published draft rapid deployment regulations that would require operators to submit detailed data on their fibre routes, ducts, poles, manholes, base stations and planned roll-outs twice a year.
Operators objected. Telkom warned that the data could be used “in nefarious ways” by “construction mafia associates, anarchists and spies” if exposed, and the Association of Comms & Technology, which represents the six largest operators, said the framework “places increased procedural obligations on licensees while core challenges remain largely unaddressed”.
The direction’s explanatory note says Icasa plans to publish the final regulations, which are required by the act and by a national policy issued in 2023, in the 2026/2027 financial year.
“Every municipality has a different process and charges different fees”, the explanatory note says, and permits are slow to be issued. Only “a fraction” of municipalities have adopted the standard draft by-law for network deployment that the minister of co-operative governance & traditional affairs published in 2023.
At Icasa’s hearings in July, operators said they wait six to 12 months for wayleaves in some metros, and proposed that applications be deemed approved if municipalities fail to decide within 30 working days. The policy direction sets no deadlines for municipalities.
Icasa must report to the minister each year on its progress, with the first report due within 12 months. Under the act, Icasa must consider the minister’s policy directions, but is not bound to follow them.
Malatsi published the draft for comment in March. The department received 16 submissions, most of them supportive, it said. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
