High court ruling welcomed

Rudolph Muller

Rudolph Muller is the editor at MyBroadband and covers telecoms and broadband news. Rudolph comes from an academic background, but left the University of...

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The Communications Users Association of South Africa (CUASA) welcomed yesterday’s decision by Acting High Court Judge Davis against Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri’s application for leave to appeal the 29 August judgment handed down in favour of Altech Autopage’s High Court Application.

“This hopefully finally clears up the meaning of the unclear Ministerial Determinations of 2004, to confirm that VANS can indeed, self provide,” said CUASA in a press statement.

“While not everyone will be pleased by the ruling, overall the decision is likely to increase liberalisation and competition in the local telecoms market – and that’s ultimately going to be a good thing for South African business and consumers.”

Communications Minister Matsepe-Casaburri made a ministerial determination in 2004 which indicated that VANS would be able to build their own networks. ICASA initially interpreted the Determinations as confirmation that VANS would be able to self-provide, but the minister later said that she had never intended this to be the case.

“CUASA now hopes that ICASA will commence the process of issuing ECNS licenses, as they announced they would do between 25 September and 1 October, but on which they reneged,” CUASA concluded.

High court ruling discussion