Telecommunications sector CEOs made a commitment on Tuesday to work with government to roll out fibre in rural communities and connect communities to the Internet grid.
Browsing: Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams
Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has criticised national treasury’s discussion document on growing South Africa’s economy, suggesting the document’s chapter on telecommunications is outdated.
Government’s planned wholesale open-access network should only get a small set-aside of radio frequency spectrum, with the rest auctioned off to commercial operators, national treasury has said.
Vodacom said on Thursday that there is no reason to delay the licensing of 5G spectrum in South Africa, arguing that its urgent allocation is needed if South Africa is going to take advantage of the fourth Industrial Revolution.
The Competition Commission plans to engage with Icasa on the planned licensing of 4G/LTE and future 5G spectrum to ensure there is “not only universal coverage but also (affordable) access”.
Released five years after Icasa tried to license access to the spectrum for broadband services, the final policy is not dissimilar to what the communications regulator originally intended.
Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams has asked Icasa to ensure that preferential access to spectrum is given to a new wholesale open-access network while opening the way for spectrum to be released to commercial operators.
Communications regulator Icasa has issued an invitation to apply for a tender to help it value high-demand spectrum bands ahead of a planned assignment of the valuable radio frequencies.
The department of communications & digital technologies was meant to publish the policy direction on the assignment of broadband spectrum in South Africa last Friday, but failed to do so.
Access to data will increase, and prices will fall, only if government gets out of the way and allows companies to have more spectrum and compete more freely. By Christo Hattingh.