{"id":346617,"date":"2020-04-06T15:25:08","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T13:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=346617"},"modified":"2020-04-06T15:25:50","modified_gmt":"2020-04-06T13:25:50","slug":"7-things-mobile-operators-must-show-before-they-can-get-extra-spectrum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/346617-7-things-mobile-operators-must-show-before-they-can-get-extra-spectrum.html","title":{"rendered":"7 things mobile operators must show before they can get extra spectrum"},"content":{"rendered":"

ICASA has published Information and Communications Technology (\u201cICT\u201d) COVID-19 National Disaster Regulations which give guidelines on the temporary assignment of spectrum.<\/p>\n

This spectrum will be released for the duration of the national state of disaster and is expected to ease network congestion.<\/p>\n

It should also enable operators to maintain the quality of broadband services and enable licensees to lower the cost of access to consumers.<\/p>\n

Five spectrum bands will be made available for temporary assignment – 700MHz, 800MHz, 2,300MHz, 2,600MHz and 3,500MHz.<\/p>\n

The good news is that two or more licensees may share radio frequency spectrum assigned to alleviate the challenges of network capacity.<\/p>\n

Any spectrum assigned temporarily to licensees shall be revoked three months after the National State of Disaster is terminated.<\/p>\n

7 things networks must show before they can get spectrum<\/h3>\n

The I-ECS and I-ECNS who need access to spectrum will need to demonstrate what the impact on network performance will be with additional spectrum. They are required to:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Provide the network performance report before the COVID-19 outbreak with the currently assigned spectrum holding.<\/li>\n
  2. Provide the current network performance.<\/li>\n
  3. Indicate the areas that are highly constrained.<\/li>\n
  4. Provide the network projections during the national lockdown.<\/li>\n
  5. Indicate the band they require access to and the bandwidth required (for the immediate use only).<\/li>\n
  6. Provide the modelled network performance with the additional spectrum they require.<\/li>\n
  7. Provide benefits to be realized by the consumers (i.e. reduced data prices, free daily bundle to all the customers, Wi-Fi connectivity etc.).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Data price cuts<\/h3>\n

    The regulations from ICASA follow Vodacom and MTN cutting their mobile data prices in South Africa.<\/p>\n

    Vodacom<\/strong><\/a> cut its 30-day data bundle prices by up to 40%, while MTN<\/strong><\/a> said it would reduce monthly data bundles prices by between 25% \u2013 50% from 15 April 2020.<\/p>\n

    Jorge Mendes, Chief Officer of Vodacom\u2019s Consumer Business Unit, said Vodacom can play a critical role in \u201csupporting society during this challenging time\u201d. Additionally, it will provide free data to access essential services through Vodacom\u2019s zero-rated platform ConnectU.<\/p>\n

    MTN SA added that it will offer customers 500MB free data access to public benefit services websites every month, amounting to 6GB per year.<\/p>\n

    Now read: ICASA releases emergency spectrum for lockdown<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    ICASA has published ICT COVID-19 National Disaster Regulations which gives guidelines on the temporary assignment of spectrum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":82487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[533,4490],"class_list":["post-346617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-icasa","tag-spectrum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346617"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":346629,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346617\/revisions\/346629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}