INDUSTRY WATCH
SOUTH AFRICA SHOULD PLAY AN ACTIVE ROLE IN THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ( 4IR ).
The Independent Communications
Authority of South Africa ( ICASA ) recently announced that the auction for high demand spectrum will be completed no later than March 31 , 2021 .
Previously , ICASA had said the spectrum auction would take place at the end of this year . The date for the publishing of the Invitation to Apply ( ITA ) documents – which were meant to be published earlier this year – will now take place no later than September 30 , 2020 . Both Vodacom and MTN have previously stated that the release of additional spectrum will allow them to reduce their pricing of data and cover more South Africans with highspeed Internet .
According to ICASA , reasons for the delay include the release of COVID-19 emergency spectrum being prioritised , the fact that ICASA was inquorate for nearly three months and additional considerations relating to the viability of the national wholesale open access network ( WOAN ). ICASA added that it considered the following inputs from stakeholders when developing the ITAs :
• The development of various empowerment obligations to be imposed on the successful bidders in the auction process including a requirement to support Mobile Virtual Network Operators
• The requirement for successful bidders to support the WOAN through procurement of a minimum 30 % national capacity
• The imposition of empowerment obligations on the WOAN in order to ensure that it is a credible empowerment tool that will assist ICASA to achieve the sector ’ s transformation agenda
• The structuring and framing of the ( spectrum ) lots in a manner that balances the objective to promote effective competition , facilitate new entrants and raise revenue for the fiscus
“ ICASA has also completed a process to determine the fair economic value of the five spectrum bands that will be made available for auction and spectrum that will be made available to the WOAN taking into consideration the current state of competition in the South African market ,” said Keabetswe Modimoeng , Chairperson , ICASA .
What this means for mobile carriers
The delay to the spectrum auction will have an effect on mobile networks that were hoping to use this new spectrum to improve their network quality and coverage . While the allocation of temporary spectrum was done to help these networks , this spectrum does not offer the same benefits that permanent spectrum allocation will offer . In research by World Wide Worx , mobile networks noted that the emergency spectrum they received – particularly in the 700 – 800 MHz bands – is “ dirty spectrum ”.
This dirty spectrum offers inferior performance due to interference .
“ The 700 – 800 MHz emergency spectrum can only be used for experimentation and innovation for now ,” claimed MTN .
“ One of the biggest challenges is around the usability of the emergency spectrum band we were issued ,” said Vodacom .
“ We would like to see a complete migration path to getting analogue out of and digital into those bands .” www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO
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