ICASA welcomes Telkom losing appeal against leasing of its equipment

Hanno Labuschagne

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ICASA welcomes Telkom losing appeal against leasing of its equipment

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has welcomed the ruling of the Supreme Court of Appeal against Telkom regarding the leasing of its facilities to network operators.

Telkom had sought to review a decision by ICASA to direct the operator to lease its ducts to Vodacom in some residential estates in the Western Cape.

This, the Authority had argued, was required in terms of section 43 of the Electronic Communications Act of 2005 (ECA).
 
Telkom.... Complaining about a difficult competitive environment on the one hand, and suing to try and maintain it's monopoly on the other hand.

Schizo much ?
 
Wrong. The ruling goes both ways.
Yes but see the question. This doesn't apply to areas but estates under very specific conditions. Icasa has in any case never mandated facilities leasing.
 
Yes but see the question. This doesn't apply to areas but estates under very specific conditions. Icasa has in any case never mandated facilities leasing.
So, if Vumatel has laid ducts and sleeves inside an estate the are now forced to lease it to any other provider?

Who determines the leasing costs? All they need to do is make is super expensive so it will be uneconomical to do.
 
The answer is what it has always been. The owner of the property or BC should provide the ducts as standard and then make them available on a non exclusive basis and at no cost to any registered telecom service provider. Problem gone.
 
Key to Tuchten’s judgement that Vodacom’s request was reasonable was that Telkom said it wanted to use this available space to install its own fibre cables.

“To my mind, once Telkom asserts that it wants to lay cabling where Vodacom wants to lay cabling, it admits, by implication, that what Vodacom wants to do is both technically and economically feasible and would promote the efficient use of networks and services,” said Tuchten.

“How can you argue that what your competitor wants to do is not technically and economically feasible and contributes to the efficient use of networks and services when you are planning to do the very same thing?”

So if telkom has space they plan to use for future expansion etc they must lease it to someone else and then there is no space left after another company is done telkom must now install new conduits at their own expense once again.

I fail to see the fairness in this.
 
So, if Vumatel has laid ducts and sleeves inside an estate the are now forced to lease it to any other provider?

Who determines the leasing costs? All they need to do is make is super expensive so it will be uneconomical to do.
No. There was a dispute over who owned the ducts. That's why Telkom turned their argument to spoliage which was not a valid argument. I don't know the specifics and it may be buried in the ruling somewhere but the estate itself had a hand in laying the infrastructure.

So if telkom has space they plan to use for future expansion etc they must lease it to someone else and then there is no space left after another company is done telkom must now install new conduits at their own expense once again.

I fail to see the fairness in this.
The fairness lies in the fact that Telkom was using underhanded tactics to get exclusive use of a servitude that wasn't theirs and nobody else went for that argument. If they need more they can lay more infrastructure at their own cost.
 
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