Communications regulator Icasa has pushed back the date of a planned auction of broadband wireless spectrum to March 2017. It has also reportedly softened the requirements around black economic empowerment.
The authority published a notice in the Government Gazette on Friday in which it said it was also giving the industry another month — to 4 November 2016 — to apply to participate in the process.
In terms of the changes, the auction — if it happens — will take place between 27 February and 10 March 2017, with the outcome to be published on 13 March 2017.
Icasa took the industry — and government — by surprise in July when it issued an invitation to apply for access to spectrum in the 700MHz and 800MHz bands (the digital dividend) and the 2,6GHz band.
The move has been met with fierce resistance from government, with telecommunications & postal services minister Siyabonga Cwele challenging the regulator’s decision in court. That case is set to be heard in the high court in Pretoria this week.
Cwele wants Icasa to wait for publication of a government white paper on ICT. The white paper does not favour a spectrum auction and reportedly proposes a radical and controversial shake-up in the way spectrum is allocated in South Africa.
Meanwhile, City Press reported on Sunday that Icasa has also relaxed the requirements around BEE for the auction.
Initially, bidders had to at least have 30% black ownership. Now a level-4 broad-based BEE rating is the minimum requirement, the newspaper said.
It reported, too, that the requirement for successful applicants to deliver minimum data speeds to 100% of South Africans has been “deferred until such time that the licensee has access to 100% of the spectrum in the assigned [spectrum] lot”.
It’s not known how long this will take given the delays to South Africa’s broadcasting digital migration project. Only once the country’s broadcasters have migrated from analogue to digital terrestrial television can the digital dividend bands be reassigned for broadband. — (c) 2016 NewsCentral Media
