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ICASA officially withdraws 2.6 GHz and 3.5 GHz ITAs
| Rudolph Muller | July 30, 2010 | No comments |
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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ICASA yesterday officially withdraw its ITA for radio frequency spectrum in the 2.6 GHz and 3.5 GHz bands
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) recently announced that it plans to withdrawn both the 2.6 GHz and 3.5 GHz ITAs, partly because of the need to reconfigure the band to suit all technologies.
ICASA added that there was a need for in-band migration, specifically referring to Sentech and iBurst which currently holds spectrum in the 2.6 GHz band in a ‘space’ which may be used for FDD LTE in future.
ICASA has now officially withdrawn its ITAs. In Government Gazette 33420 published on the 29th of July the regulator officially stated that it is withdrawing the invitation to apply (ITA) for radio frequency spectrum in the 2.6 GHz and 3.5 Ghz frequency bands published on 28 May.
ICASA stated in the same Government Gazette that the High Demand Radio Frequency Spectrum Licensing Regulations will however remain in force.
This move by the regulator was criticized by some industry players as yet another delay in handing out spectrum and delaying competition in the broadband market.
“Whilst we recognise there are some challenges with the ITAs – especially the National ITA (for 2.6GHz) – we believe there were measures that could have been taken to mitigate the issues. With respect to the Regional ITA (for 3.5GHz) its’ cancellation (or delay) appears to be unjustified,” ISOC-ZA said in a press statement.
“We know that there are dozens of wireless ISPs struggling to compete with the previously advantaged licensees due to the lack of available licensed spectrum, and their chances of doing so have just been squashed.”
Others however welcomed ICASA’s rethink of the way it plans to hand out the spectrum, saying that a mistake could set South Africa back a decade or more.
2.6 GHz spectrum << who do you think should get spectrum?
