Communications regulator Icasa has won a high court battle against iBurst parent Wireless Business Solutions (WBS), with the court finding that the telecommunications operator was using radio frequency spectrum without paying the required licence fees.
The judgment, handed down on Tuesday, comes a year after Icasa raided WBS’s offices, seizing equipment that led to downtime for iBurst and sister company Broadlink.
But WBS has already vowed to fight back, with nonexecutive director David Hilewitz saying the company does not agree with the judgment and intends lodging an appeal within the next five days.
WBS CEO Thami Mtshali tells TechCentral that he wants to resolve all outstanding issues with Icasa. “We don’t want this cloud hanging over our head all the time,” he says. “We’d like to arrive at a quick solution. We don’t want to fight with our regulator.”
He has vowed to act in the best interests of WBS customers.
Shortly after last year’s raids on WBS, the company won an urgent interdict against Icasa in terms of which it had to return equipment seized from six separate sites on 3 April 2013.
But Tuesday’s judgment is a big setback for WBS, with acting judge ARG Mundell finding that Icasa acted within the law in raiding the WBS facilities and seizing its communications equipment.
The court has ordered that WBS pay all costs.
Icasa last year accused WBS of using spectrum unlawfully and owing it in the region of R60m in unpaid licence fees. In correspondence with Icasa, WBS claimed the figure was only R8,5m.
Tuesday’s judgment found that WBS did not pay the required licence fees and the result of that nonpayment is that it “may not engage in the operation of the network as it is not in possession of radio frequency spectrum licences”.
WBS had sought a declaratory order that it is licensed to operate in the 1GHz, 1,8GHz, 2,6GHz, 5,9GHz, 10,5GHz and 26GHz bands.
WBS did not pay the required licence fees for any of the years 2010, 2011 or 2012 and, on a reading of the regulations, the court found that WBS’s licences are deemed to have expired.
The court would also not grant an order setting aside the original warrant Icasa was granted to raid the WBS facilities.
“In the circumstances, I am not satisfied that the warrant issued … on 7 March 2013 was not validly issued … nor am I persuaded that any basis exists for now setting it aside – effectively an exercise in futility. In the result, the relief sought … must fail,” Mundell says in his judgment. — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Media
