Telkom’s new spectrum bill to be R922 million?

Well done to Clr Stucke for taking such a hard line. There is no reason that Telkom should continue to get a free ride for the numerous assignments they have while the rest of the industry is coughing up every year.
 
More court cases.

How much more is Telkom's share price going to drop.
 
They have to bitch and moan as much as possible, they are companies, they need to feed the bottom line.
 
ambo said:
Well done to Clr Stucke for taking such a hard line. There is no reason that Telkom should continue to get a free ride for the numerous assignments they have while the rest of the industry is coughing up every year.
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I agree in principle, but watch the state monopoly increase their charges by 200% of the cost ...
 
Very easy for Telkom.... cut off all the links to other operators and make them apply for their own licences... and then sit back and watch 50% of all cellphone users moan about no service!
 
What I find interesting about Icasa's new licensing scheme is the way the fee of a point-to-point link is determined. It takes into account a few factors, such as frequency congestion, geographical area (a link in PTA costs ten times more than the same link in the middle of nowhere), frequency band, and channel size. But it absolutely does not take link throughput, modulation or ACM into account or XPIC.

If ICASA was really serious about efficient spectrum usage, surely they would reward an operator for using XPIC, which doubles the spectrum utilization for the link. Also, using 512 QAM is much more bandwidth efficient than using 4 QAM. And ACM makes links more dependable, though at a P_Tx cost to the operator.

By ignoring these ICASA really seems to have the money as first interest, rather than efficient spectrum use.
 
MickeyD said:
Very easy for Telkom.... cut off all the links to other operators and make them apply for their own licences... and then sit back and watch 50% of all cellphone users moan about no service!
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Thats all very well but the unfortunate fact is that Telkom is making extremely poor use of the spectrum that they have. There are many regions where they are using entire bands when they could be reusing a few channels. There are also many national frequency assignments that are only being used in select areas.

Just by returning spectrum that is unused - Telkom would save a packet. Then by doing some RF planning and doing some clever frequency reuse... they'd save a whole packet more. Then (as Clr Stucke indicated) they can surrender their national assignments and use co-ordinated spectrum assignments and save even more.

Other operators are building their own RF links in clever ways using a fraction of the spectrum allocation. Come Telkom - this is the 21st century. ;)
 
ambo said:
Thats all very well but the unfortunate fact is that Telkom is making extremely poor use of the spectrum that they have. There are many regions where they are using entire bands when they could be reusing a few channels. There are also many national frequency assignments that are only being used in select areas.

Just by returning spectrum that is unused - Telkom would save a packet. Then by doing some RF planning and doing some clever frequency reuse... they'd save a whole packet more. Then (as Clr Stucke indicated) they can surrender their national assignments and use co-ordinated spectrum assignments and save even more.

Other operators are building their own RF links in clever ways using a fraction of the spectrum allocation. Come Telkom - this is the 21st century. ;)
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No argument from me, my friend!
 
Don't worry, the Government will step in and make sure that Telkom gets what they want.
 
I agree with this! Give the valuable frequencies to companies to have the knowledge and will to use it, not sit on it like a chickens...
 
Tacet said:
What I find interesting about Icasa's new licensing scheme is the way the fee of a point-to-point link is determined. It takes into account a few factors, such as frequency congestion, geographical area (a link in PTA costs ten times more than the same link in the middle of nowhere), frequency band, and channel size. But it absolutely does not take link throughput, modulation or ACM into account or XPIC.

If ICASA was really serious about efficient spectrum usage, surely they would reward an operator for using XPIC, which doubles the spectrum utilization for the link. Also, using 512 QAM is much more bandwidth efficient than using 4 QAM. And ACM makes links more dependable, though at a P_Tx cost to the operator.

By ignoring these ICASA really seems to have the money as first interest, rather than efficient spectrum use.
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I'm somewhat out of my depth here, but those criteria seem technology-dependent and even more efficient uses of spectrum are likely to be developed, no?

Not that I want to defend these regulations necessarily (they come from much earlier days - before the time of much of the current staff at ICASA, I'm told), but I reckon the idea is to build a system that doesn't have to be relooked an incremental improvement in technology emerges.

So the formula looks at the basics (which I'll hopefully cover in another article): Unit cost of spectrum (R2,000/MHz/year), amount of bandwidth, a bunch of other incentive factors (you mentioned geography), and the MINIHOP factor.

The incentive factors, such as GEO, reduces the price of using a link in an underserviced area, but doesn't increase the unit price if used in urban areas.

What the MINIHOP factor is supposed to do, is penalise operators for using spectrum in an inappropriate manner. Which ICASA boiled down to a minimum link length at certain frequencies. For example, lower frequency spectrum propagates further. If you use it for links shorter than X (where X is provided in a lookup table), you get penalised.
 
Shame Telkom getting hit from all angles now. Telkom gonna have to hire some engineers to do it if they don't have capacity to do audit and licencing properly. I ironically was doing a microwave course and the licencing aspect was one of the 1st things discussed.. so i doubt cell operators have much to fret about unless they also too the east blanket licencing route
 
ambo said:
Thats all very well but the unfortunate fact is that Telkom is making extremely poor use of the spectrum that they have. There are many regions where they are using entire bands when they could be reusing a few channels. There are also many national frequency assignments that are only being used in select areas.

Just by returning spectrum that is unused - Telkom would save a packet. Then by doing some RF planning and doing some clever frequency reuse... they'd save a whole packet more. Then (as Clr Stucke indicated) they can surrender their national assignments and use co-ordinated spectrum assignments and save even more.

Other operators are building their own RF links in clever ways using a fraction of the spectrum allocation. Come Telkom - this is the 21st century. ;)
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It is awesome to promote efficient use of the spectrum, especially the part where they increase price in congested areas and decrease in quiet areas. Brilliant way to get a bit more self-governance going. It is a pity that they have not really included better technology usage as part of this to further increase efficiency, but I am OK with them adding this later on.
 
Jan said:
I'm somewhat out of my depth here, but those criteria seem technology-dependent and even more efficient uses of spectrum are likely to be developed, no?
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100% agree, leave utilisation to operator. Price is a regulating factor, forcing operator to improve efficiency over a time.
 
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