{"id":60623,"date":"2012-09-26T10:03:30","date_gmt":"2012-09-26T08:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=60623"},"modified":"2012-09-26T13:03:54","modified_gmt":"2012-09-26T11:03:54","slug":"lte-spectrum-policy-drafted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/cellular\/60623-lte-spectrum-policy-drafted.html","title":{"rendered":"LTE spectrum policy drafted"},"content":{"rendered":"

The spectrum policy for high-demand spectrum has been drafted by the Department of Communications (DoC<\/a>) and is in consultations with stakeholders.<\/p>\n

This is according to information received from Cassius Nkosi, a councillor of the City of Ekurhuleni on the finance oversight committee, who was contacted by deputy director-general of the DoC, Themba Phiri<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The DoC was contacted for comment but did not respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n

Phiri contacted Nkosi after the councillor posted on the DoC\u2019s Facebook wall<\/a> asking for an update on the status of the policy direction.<\/p>\n

Nkosi said that while countries like Namibia have acted resolutely to roll-out high speed mobile broadband technology, \u201cSouth Africa dithers over when and how to issue this high-demand spectrum.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spectrum in question is the 800MHz \u201cdigital dividend\u201d and 2.6GHz bands. These bands are highly sought-after for the roll-out of high speed mobile broadband technologies such as Long Term Evolution (LTE<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Network operators such as Vodacom<\/a> and MTN<\/a> have said previously that they are ready to roll out LTE and just need the spectrum to deploy the network.<\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s telecommunications regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA<\/a>) previously explained that it is waiting on a Ministerial policy directive before it can assign the spectrum.<\/p>\n

MTN has since announced plans to launch commercial LTE services in South Africa during 2012 even though the 800MHz and 2,600MHz bands haven\u2019t been assigned yet.<\/p>\n

8ta<\/a> is also upgrading its network and getting it ready for a potential commercial LTE launch in 2013.<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

LTE spectrum for SA: SNAFU<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

South Africa\u2019s LTE kingmakers<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LTE in SA looms<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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

LTE in South Africa: just add spectrum<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some progress on the long-awaited spectrum policy direction<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":31060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[15707,15709,237,6002,35,533,2136,2492,2490,6004,8373],"class_list":["post-60623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cellular","tag-cassius-nkosi","tag-city-of-ekurhuleni","tag-department-of-communications","tag-dina-pule","tag-headline","tag-icasa","tag-independent-communications-authority-of-south-africa","tag-long-term-evolution","tag-lte","tag-minister-of-communications","tag-themba-phiri"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60623"}],"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=60623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60693,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60623\/revisions\/60693"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}