SAT3 closer to becoming an essential facility
According to the regulations, the list of essential facilities include co-location space, land based fiber optic cables and ‘main distribution frame’.
In the international fiber connectivity market it includes the backhaul circuit, the cable landing station, co-location space, earth station, international gateway, land based fiber optic cables, main distribution frame and undersea based fiber optic cables.
The regulations call for fair and non-discriminatory access to the essential facility upon a written request to access the facility.
The regulations also call for the company in control of the essential facility to apply the same conditions and provide access to the same conditions and of the same quality as it provides itself or its subsidiaries.
It is further made clear that the person in charge of access to an essential facility may not withdraw or impair the nature of the access once such access has been granted.
It should however be noted that an essential facility is defined as ‘an electronic communications facility or combination of electronic communications or other facilities that is exclusively or predominantly provided by a single or limited number of licensees and cannot feasibly (whether economically, environmentally or technically) be substituted or duplicated in order to provide a service in terms of this Act’.
This definition may exclude some of the items listed in the regulations where competition is starting to enter the market. This could include land based fiber optic cables where various players – including Neotel, Transtel, MTN and Vodacom – are aiming to compete with Telkom using their own fiber networks.
Any company which does not comply with the regulations can be fined up to 10 % of its annual turnover over the period within which the contravention continues.
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