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Communications regulator Icasa final week served discover on telecommunications operators that it will withdraw non permanent spectrum allotted beneath the Covid-19 rules on the finish of November. That is wrongheaded and can hurt customers.
Learn: MTN, Vodacom in race to settle SA spectrum dispute
On Monday, August 30, Icasa issued a media assertion saying it had prolonged the “grace interval” by an extra three months, till 30 November 2021, however that this might be the final time it did so and the operators that had utilized for and have been utilizing the extra spectrum in the course of the pandemic must hand it again.
Icasa first licensed the spectrum on an emergency foundation in the course of the exhausting lockdown in 2020 after corporations have been pressured to ship their workers house to work. Organisations pivoted in a single day, with hundreds of thousands of South African workplace staff all of a sudden establishing makeshift workstations in spare bedrooms, their kitchens or their residing rooms. These staff, till then utilizing devoted company (principally fibre) networks, all of a sudden positioned monumental calls for on cellular infrastructure as they dusted off knowledge dongles or tethered their PCs to their smartphones. It’s exceptional that the entire train went off as easily because it did, with some corporations’ complete name centres transitioned and distributed nearly in a single day into workers’ properties.
The choice by the regulator to allocate unused non permanent spectrum in the course of the lockdown was completely the proper factor to do – it alleviated a number of the stress on the cellular networks, particularly in suburban areas the place there was a sudden spike in demand. The operators have been ready to make use of this emergency spectrum to service this demand and maintain the economic system ticking over in a time of disaster.
In asserting its plans to withdraw the spectrum final week, Icasa mentioned it had already “twice prolonged the period” of the project. “The authority has taken into consideration the present atmosphere in relation to the variety of infections, the gradual reopening of the economic system and the regular progress within the vaccination programme. Extra importantly, it’s aware of the necessity to focus its efforts on the everlasting licensing of spectrum,” it mentioned.
‘State of permanence’
Icasa chairman Keabetswe Modimoeng added that the regulator “can not permit the non permanent spectrum project to imagine a state of permanence. Having allowed operators to make use of the non permanent spectrum for 17 months, it’s affordable that they be allowed an extra three months, till 30 November 2021, as a ample winding-down interval.”
Besides there’s a drawback with this argument. The Covid-19 pandemic is way from over. On the present price of vaccination – and the apparently excessive ranges of resistance to taking the vaccine – there’s each likelihood that South Africa will expertise a fourth wave in late 2021 or early 2022, scientists and medical consultants have warned. By then, if an inadequate variety of folks have been vaccinated, which appears probably, there’s no realizing how large the fourth wave will likely be. If it’s extreme and protracted, just like the third wave, authorities will tighten the lockdown as soon as once more, forcing folks out of workplace buildings and again into their by-now-not-so-makeshift house places of work. And as soon as once more they’ll be putting larger calls for on cellular infrastructure.
By taking again the spectrum assignments simply weeks earlier than a fourth wave is prone to emerge is unnecessary. In reality, if it insists on doing so, Icasa will likely be performing in opposition to its personal mandate, which is to manage in pursuits of the general public – of the customers of telecommunications providers. That absolutely can’t be the authority’s intention, however it will be the online results of the spectrum pullback resolution.
Modimoeng on the weekend instructed broadcaster eNCA (watch the video above) that the allocation of non permanent spectrum has a “direct bearing on the competitors panorama” and warned, with out offering additional particulars or proof, that it’s “tilting” {the marketplace}. He mentioned Icasa had cautioned operators in opposition to configuring their enterprise fashions across the non permanent assignments.
“Licensing spectrum quickly was a unprecedented, unprecedented measure occasioned by an unprecedented scenario in our nation. We’re nonetheless within the pandemic, however at the moment we’re not in the identical circumstances we have been in on 26 March final yr when the exhausting lockdown started,” Modimoeng mentioned.
“We have to present as a regulator that we’re aware of that change in atmosphere whereas concurrently attempting all in our energy, day and evening, to resolve this deadlock so the licensing of high-demand spectrum — so an public sale — can happen.”
Starved of spectrum
What Modimoeng didn’t say within the eNCA interview was that these operators have been offering South Africans with entry to more and more speedy cellular knowledge regardless of not having the ability to faucet new spectrum assets for greater than 15 years. The final time South Africa awarded spectrum was for 3G providers. That now we have 4G/LTE and (very restricted) 5G is a sworn statement to the intelligent engineering groups on the cellular operators which have been capable of reallocate 2G and 3G spectrum for extra trendy applied sciences. Simply suppose: In the event that they’d been granted 4G spectrum a decade in the past – which is when it ought to have occurred – South African cellular protection would in all probability be among the many greatest on this planet at the moment.
It’s principally not Icasa’s fault that the spectrum hasn’t been assigned but – a lot of the blame for that needs to be shouldered by former communications ministers, whose bungling and ineptitude has price South Africa dearly. Broadcasters eMedia Holdings and MultiChoice Group additionally have to shoulder a number of the blame for his or her unseemly squabbling that delayed the published digital migration programme, which implies South Africa nonetheless hasn’t switched off analogue tv.
As an alternative of taking a tough line now, Icasa should be pragmatic concerning the scenario, realising that if it takes away this non permanent lifeline earlier than the deliberate spectrum public sale occurs – hopefully later this yr – customers will likely be hardest hit. Knowledge costs, which have tumbled this yr, could go up once more; Web speeds will definitely go down in areas of congestion. This can’t be the result the regulator needs, however it’s the result it dangers getting.
The number-one precedence proper now should be reaching an out-of-court settlement with Telkom, eMedia Holdings and MTN South Africa, the three litigants which have taken the spectrum public sale course of on evaluate. I hear good progress has been made, although there are nonetheless a few sticking factors. When it comes to the court docket course of, the events have till mid-September to achieve settlement. For the sake of South Africa’s improvement, it will be disastrous if they don’t.
South Africa can not go backwards now. As an alternative of threatening to withdraw the non permanent spectrum – presumably a negotiating tactic to get the opponents to settlement, although I’m instructed it’s not – Icasa ought to lengthen it till such time because the spectrum public sale can happen.
Icasa is correct that extending it in perpetuity just isn’t supreme. However as an alternative of punishing customers – and traders – by withdrawing the spectrum now, Icasa should direct all its energies to reaching an amicable settlement that avoids a protracted authorized dispute by way of the court docket system, which might take years.
Such an consequence can be horrible for the sector, for customers and for the South African economic system. And any of the businesses occasion to the negotiations which can be too inflexible of their strategy – and usually are not keen to concede key factors within the nationwide curiosity – ought to be criticised severely. Now – and I’m addressing this on to Telkom, eMedia and MTN – just isn’t the time for slender self-interest.
Duncan McLeod is Editor of TechCentral, on which this text was first revealed right here.
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