{"id":50693,"date":"2012-05-23T14:00:39","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T12:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=50693"},"modified":"2012-05-23T14:01:53","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T12:01:53","slug":"iburst-lte-roll-out-still-planned-for-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wireless\/50693-iburst-lte-roll-out-still-planned-for-2012.html","title":{"rendered":"iBurst LTE roll-out still planned for 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although relying on the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA)<\/a> process to license spectrum, iBurst<\/a> said that it still plans to begin the roll-out of its Long Term Evolution (LTE)<\/a> network by mid\u20132012.<\/p>\n

Speaking at Telecoms World Africa 2012 held in Sandton, iBurst Group head of regulatory affairs, Joe Kgamedi,<\/a> said that they do plan to enter into partnerships to share infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe recognise the regulations from ICASA on facilities sharing,\u201d Kgamedi said. \u201cWe have our own sites, we will take advantage of those,\u201d Kgamedi said, but added that for capacity they \u201cobviously\u201d have to look at infrastructure sharing.<\/p>\n

Kgamedi said that while they do have spectrum that can be used for LTE, iBurst is \u201cdependent on regulatory processes in 2.6GHz.\u201d<\/p>\n

ICASA has issued an invitation to apply (ITA) for scarce spectrum in the 800MHz and 2.6GHz bands, but is waiting on a policy direction from the Minister of Communications before it can continue the process.<\/p>\n

\"LTE

LTE Spectrum Assignment Plan - 2.6GHz band<\/p><\/div>\n

Asked what iBurst thinks of ICASA\u2019s plan to make the high-demand spectrum needed for LTE deployments only available on a wholesale basis to established operators, Kgamedi said that they are open to any suggestion by ICASA.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that ICASA\u2019s current plan affords Wireless Business Solutions (WBS), iBurst\u2019s holding company, its own spectrum in the 2.6GHz band.<\/p>\n

WBS and Sentech<\/a> had already been assigned spectrum in the band which presented a substantial hurdle to licensing the rest of the spectrum in the way recommended by the International Telecommunications Union<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Among other things, ICASA\u2019s ITA aims to relocate the assignments of WBS and Sentech in the 2.6GHz band.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the outcome of the process grants us our own spectrum it would super for us,\u201d Kgamedi said.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

WBS planning LTE network in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

WBS LTE spectrum negotiations ongoing<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Will LTE spectrum be wasted?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Minister backtracks on spectrum promise<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LTE in mortal danger in SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Will the DoC ever get its act together?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

iBurst says that it still plans to roll out a Long Term Evolution network from mid\u20132012<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":35398,"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":[14,13],"tags":[4972,35,683,533,10128,2490],"class_list":["post-50693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","category-wireless","tag-frequency-spectrum","tag-headline","tag-iburst","tag-icasa","tag-joe-kgamedi","tag-lte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50693"}],"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=50693"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50693\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50819,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50693\/revisions\/50819"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}