{"id":547103,"date":"2005-10-24T16:21:14","date_gmt":"2005-10-24T16:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/547103-new-ict-lobby-group-chair-promises-more-pressure.html"},"modified":"2005-10-24T16:21:14","modified_gmt":"2005-10-24T16:21:14","slug":"new-ict-lobby-group-chair-promises-more-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/547103-new-ict-lobby-group-chair-promises-more-pressure.html","title":{"rendered":"New ICT lobby group chair promises more pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\">Thompson&#8217;s appointment comes at a time when South Africa awaits the arrival of the second national operator (SNO) and a competitive era as the market opens up to more ICT players due to liberalisation.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">The newcomer hailed his predecessor Mike van den Bergh for &quot;tirelessly representing our members on a wide variety of issues&quot;. The outgoing boss was\u00a0not available for re-election due to a potential conflict of interest.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Van den Bergh is MD at Gateway Communications, one of the SNO shareholders.\u00a0Thompson noted his predecessor&#8217;s leadership for Cuasa&#8217;s ability to challenge the significant authority and power of &quot;monopolistic and quasi- monopolistic telecommunications service providers&quot; over the past five years.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">The new chairperson said he will ensure that the organisation continues to lobby government and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) in pursuit of a more free and fair telecommunications and ICT market for the good of communications users and the country&#8217;s economy.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Prior to assuming the role of chairpersonship, Thompson served as an executive member since Cuasa&#8217;s formation. He has been involved in the telecommunications industry since 1982 and is also a senior executive at Internet service provider UUNet SA.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">&quot;Cuasa is an important organisation in South Africa&#8217;s current telecommunications environment and I am grateful for this opportunity to sit\u00a0at its helm and lead the local community into more affordable, available and\u00a0adaptable communication possibilities,&quot; Thompson said.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Meanwhile, Icasa will early in 2006 hold public hearings into what Cuasa\u00a0derides as &quot;obscene&quot; cell phone costs following its formal complaint in May.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Inet-Bridge<\/font><\/p>\n<p \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Communications Users Association of South Africa (Cuasa) new chairperson Edwin Thompson said the organisation will continue to lobby for legislative and regulatory pressure to yield effective competition in the telecommunications and other information and communications technology (ICT) sectors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"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":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-547103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547103"}],"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=547103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}