{"id":547481,"date":"2005-12-09T12:25:59","date_gmt":"2005-12-09T12:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/547481-icasa-licences-sno-unbundling-of-loop-delayed.html"},"modified":"2005-12-09T12:25:59","modified_gmt":"2005-12-09T12:25:59","slug":"icasa-licences-sno-unbundling-of-loop-delayed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/547481-icasa-licences-sno-unbundling-of-loop-delayed.html","title":{"rendered":"Icasa licences SNO, unbundling of loop delayed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although the SNO licence issued by the Independent Communications Authority\u00a0(ICASA) entitled the new player – SNO Telecommunications – to compete with Telkom on the public switched telecommunications service (PSTS) front, the unbundling of the local loop has been delayed until further notice, said Icasa councilor Tracy Cohen.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Telkom, the entity that has a PSTS licence monopoly controls the local loop or the copper wire that runs from exchanges to households.<\/font> <\/p>\n

The current telecommunications legislation says that there shall be no local loop unbundling during the first two years of operation of the SNO. <\/font><\/p>\n

However, the legislation also entitles the new player access to Telkom’s infrastructure for this two-year period.<\/font> <\/p>\n

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), unbundling of the local loop would allow the second operator to obtain revenue more quickly and accelerate investment.<\/font> <\/p>\n

While the entry of the SNO is also seen as a catalyst towards the lowering of telephony tariffs, the OECD’s Dimitri Ypsilanti cited the examples of the UK and Australia in arguing that the impact of duopolies is not "very positive."<\/font> <\/p>\n

Cohen was however, of the view that the roll out of the new network would lead to lower tariffs "but not too quickly" as well as "the much needed competition", adding that it would provide choice to consumers, businesses as well as other service providers who had in the past depended on Telkom.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Transtel CEO and SNO spokesperson Karl Socikwa would not be drawn into commenting about the operator’s plans going ahead and instead noted that the\u00a0board would be meeting later on Friday after which a media briefing would be\u00a0scheduled.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Socikwa declined to comment on operational issues, the leadership and management of the operator, staff, how much the operator would be spending as well as infrastructure and other aspects.<\/font> <\/p>\n

The state-owned enterprises, Transtel and Esitel which jointly own 30% in the SNO, have already written off more than one billion rand due to delays in the licensing and deployment of the network while Tata Group – a 25% investor – is, according to media reports, expected to invest US$230 million (1.5 billion\u00a0rand) in South Africa over the next three years.<\/font> <\/p>\n

According to Cohen, the SNO was not required to adhere to any timeframes in terms of rolling out, but Socikwa said the team was working very hard to deploy the network "as soon as possible" but was unable to offer specific guidelines pending the board meeting.<\/font> <\/p>\n

In handing over the 25-year PSTS licence, Icasa councilor and SNO committee chairperson Lumko Mtimde said the new player’s obligations included the provision of Internet connectivity to 2,500 rural public clinics and 2,500 to public schools or further education and training institutions over a period yet to be decided.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Telecommunications research house BMI-TechKnowledge expects Telkom to be a tough competitor but Socikwa said the consortium had conducted the relevant market research, looked at various aspects and would not enter the market "with our eyes closed."<\/font> <\/p>\n

The SNO is controlled by SepCo which comprises the Tata Group of India with a 26% stake split between Tata Africa with 1% and VSNL’s 25% while Two Telecom and CommuniTel each own 12.5%. Kennedy Memani-led Nexus Connexion is an empowerment partner with 19%.<\/font> <\/p>\n

The government owns 30% in the SNO through Transnet’s Transtel and Eskom’s Esitel plus a 38% shareholding in Telkom which paid the state 1.9 billion rand in dividends for the year ended March 2005.<\/font> <\/p>\n

Telkom’s five-year exclusivity period ended in May 2002, but a protracted search for a foreign investor plus disputes in the SNO camp arising from\u00a0Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri’s disagreement with Icasa and Nexus on some issues,have helped Telkom consolidate as it remained unchallenged.\u00a0<\/font> <\/p>\n

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Following the licensing of the\u00a0second national operator (SNO) to compete with Telkom (TKG) – almost four years behind schedule – South Africa is finally set for a duopoly of fixed line operators – possibly from 2006, it was announced on Friday.<\/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-547481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547481"}],"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=547481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}