{"id":418154,"date":"2021-10-13T09:30:55","date_gmt":"2021-10-13T07:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=418154"},"modified":"2021-10-13T09:40:14","modified_gmt":"2021-10-13T07:40:14","slug":"icasa-will-fight-telkom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/418154-icasa-will-fight-telkom.html","title":{"rendered":"Icasa will fight Telkom"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has vowed to fight the court case that Telkom filed to block the regulator from taking back emergency radio frequency spectrum.<\/p>\n

Telkom approached the North Gauteng High Court last week to file papers to interdict Icasa from taking back the temporary spectrum it assigned\u00a0at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

Radio frequency spectrum is the raw capacity cellular network operators like Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, and Rain use to offer services.<\/p>\n

It enables communication between their towers and devices like smartphones and Wi-Fi routers.<\/p>\n

“Icasa believes that the circumstances and considerations that informed the issuing of the radio frequency spectrum at the onset of the pandemic never contemplated that the spectrum would be licensed on a long-term or semi-permanent basis,” the regulator stated.<\/p>\n

“The Authority will therefore be derelict in its duty if it were, by default, to perpetuate what is now becoming an anti-competitive, unfair, and unjust spectrum licensing regime, under the guise of pandemic relief.”<\/p>\n

Icasa argued that public interest dictates that high-demand spectrum be licensed without delay through an open, competitive, and permanent assignment process.<\/p>\n

“It is for this reason that the Authority has set out an expedited timetable for the permanent licensing of this spectrum through an open, market-based approach by no later than the end of March 2022<\/a><\/strong>,” Icasa stated.<\/p>\n

“In Icasa’s view, it would be unfortunate if the Authority\u2019s efforts to license this spectrum were continually to be frustrated by recourse to the courts to allow the temporary, ad hoc COVID-19 spectrum arrangements to remain in place in perpetuity.”<\/p>\n

\"Portrait<\/a>

Siyabonga Mahlangu, Telkom Group Executive: Regulatory Affairs and Government Relations<\/p><\/div>\n

The essence of Telkom\u2019s argument is that the temporary spectrum must remain in place for the duration of South Africa\u2019s national state of disaster due to Covid\u201319.<\/p>\n

This comes after Icasa surprised the telecommunications industry last month when it\u00a0announced plans to take back the emergency spectrum<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0at the end of November.<\/p>\n

Icasa assigned the spectrum at the start of South Africa\u2019s national state of disaster to help network operators cope with the surge in demand for data during the Covid\u201319 lockdown.<\/p>\n

Last month, it surprised the telecommunications industry when Icasa announced plans to take back the spectrum at the end of November.<\/p>\n

While the spectrum assignments were always temporary, the industry was confounded that Icasa would take it back when experts forecast that\u00a0South Africa would experience a fourth wave of Covid\u201319<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0from the start of December.<\/p>\n

Icasa argues that the circumstances that justified the release of the emergency spectrum has changed, while feedback from South Africa\u2019s mobile network providers<\/a><\/strong> paints a very different picture.<\/p>\n

Cell C, MTN, Telkom, and Vodacom explained that their network traffic volumes had remained high throughout the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The three that operate their own networks\u2014MTN, Telkom, and Vodacom\u2014have also warned that removing the temporary spectrum at this stage would have disastrous effects on the quality of their networks.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read:\u00a0Good news for digital TV in South Africa<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Icasa has vowed to fight the court case that Telkom launched to block the regulator from taking back emergency cellular network capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":388040,"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":[35,18090,109],"class_list":["post-418154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-headline","tag-independent-communications-authority-of-south-africa-icasa","tag-telkom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418154"}],"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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418154"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418154\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":418156,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418154\/revisions\/418156"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}