South Africa considering Wi-Fi licences — what it means
Communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni recently published a draft next-generation spectrum policy for public comment, including potential Wi-Fi permits and licensing.
However, this does not mean South Africans will have to get permits or licences for their home Wi-Fi routers.
“With the rapid growth of Wi-Fi in complementing and off-loading mobile data traffic from fixed broadband, the Regulator must continuously consider and review more protection of spectrum use for Wi-Fi services, including possible licensing and permits,” the proposed policy states.
It also says that industry regulator Icasa must evaluate measures and options to enhance the effectiveness of Wi-Fi.
This includes considering allocating additional radio frequency spectrum to support new Wi-Fi technologies.
Spectrum is the raw capacity wireless network providers use to communicate between subscriber devices and their towers.
Wi-Fi access points also use spectrum to connect devices around the home.
The standard Wi-Fi and Bluetooth frequencies are in the 2.4GHz spectrum band. A higher-frequency 5GHz band is also available on newer Wi-Fi access points and devices.
“The Minister must from time to time consider incentives to stimulate investment for Wi-Fi deployments in poor areas that facilitate access to financing and/or funding, and access to spectrum for use or share,” the policy says.
MyBroadband contacted the Wireless Access Providers’ Association (Wapa) to help explain what the policy’s references to Wi-Fi licences and permits mean.
Paul Colmer, WAPA Executive Management Committee member and head of the TVWS project
“It’s a massive step forward in all regards,” Wapa executive management committee member Paul Colmer told MyBroadband.
“It’s aligned with what we have been trying to achieve over the years to enable SMMEs [small, medium, and micro enterprises] to play a major part in the vision of government to ‘leave nobody behind’”.
Colmer explained that the higher-frequency 5.8GHz unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum that wireless Internet service providers (WISPs) use is extremely congested with high noise levels.
There are regulations governing who can use this spectrum and limits on how much signal power they may put out.
However, Colmer said the nature of unlicensed spectrum is that it’s a free-for-all so long as you comply with the rules for the frequency band.
“Globally, we have seen massive inroads being made in opening up Wi-Fi 6E band 5.925GHz–7.125GHz [as an unlicensed band] — a massive 1.2GHz of spectrum which is sorely needed in SA,” Colmer said.
But South Africa must also learn from its mistakes when deploying 5.8GHz for use in Wi-Fi networks.
“These new Wi-Fi allocations must be managed correctly for the good of all,” Colmer said.
He explained that in Wi-Fi 6E, they are currently looking at two power profiles: very low power used for devices like Wi-Fi routers, and standard power for outdoor use in fixed wireless access and community networks.
“It is actually common sense that we have to manage these bands and also protect any incumbent users,” said Colmer.
“This would be achieved by using automatic frequency coordination (AFC) — a database to allocate channels to avoid causing interference for existing users.”
“These AFC databases already exist in the US, and multiple applications have been received by the FCC [the US regulator] to build more.”
Colmer said the minister’s draft policy shows that the government is pushing for spectrum sharing and dynamic spectrum allocation.
“Which is unquestionably the most economic use of spectrum,” Colmer stated.
He added that this is nothing new, with systems in the US doing it, and Wapa doing the same in South Africa with its TV whitespaces project using a database from the CSIR.
Licences or permits for AFC database access
“Licenses or permits to access these systems for specific use cases will assist in achieving compliant users,” explained Colmer.
“It is a great step forward to achieving the Holy Grail of a cleaner, managed unlicensed Wi-Fi space in South Africa,” he said.
“It will become the foundation of the networks that the SMME WISPs were born to build, and pursue the vision of the minister to leave nobody behind in the digital economy.”
Colmer said there is a thread running through the new draft spectrum policy that clearly shows the minister and her department intend to include and support SMME WISPs.
“The new policy draft is music to my ears,” Colmer said
“Although regulatory management and policy implementation can be a difficult road, it can be done and has my full support.”
Anyone interested in commenting on the proposed spectrum policy has 30 days from 8 September 2022 to respond.
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