Johannesburg - SA's telecommunications watchdog Icasa has already taken a court ruling that allows companies to bypass Telkom into account and is granting these firms infrastructure licences.
The ruling means that value-added network service (Vans) operators can provide their own networks instead of having to rely on Telkom, which should translate into increased competition and lower telecoms prices.
It was Altech Autopage Cellular that took minister of communications Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri and Icasa to court over the matter of whether Vans could build their own networks or not, as the law and comments made by the minister in 2004 made it unclear.
Icasa's licensees can collect their new licences between Monday September 8 and October 1. These licences have been converted from the old ones as under the Telecommunications Act, into the new categories contained in the Electronic Communications Act.
It lists 27 Vans licensees as recipients for both individual rlectronic communications services (I-ECS) and individual Electronic communications network services (I-ECNS) licences.
Among these are Altech Autopage, Datapro (Vox Telecom), MTN Network Solutions, M-WEB, ECN Telecommunications and Telfree, and others (for a full list, see Government Gazette 31399, Schedule A).
I-ECS licences confer a right to provide services on a national scale, whilst I-ECNS licences add the right to build one?s own network, also on a national scale.
These recipients must collect their licences between 22 and 30 September.
Prior to the Altech ruling, only a select few of these Vans operators would have been allowed to build their own facilities, because they had been forced to engage in a competitive process to determine which of them would be granted I-ECNS licenses.
Justice Davis ruled that the minister of communications' determination to Icasa to use a competitive process for determining which Vans qualified was illegal. He said Vans already had the right to self-provision.
Icasa has now clearly and quickly shelved this process.
John Holdsworth, the CEO of ECN, says even more exciting than the right to self-provide, is the fact that former Vans like itself would also have the right to benefit from all the pro-competitive measures that the act puts in place.
For example, ECN has long called on Icasa to grant the Vans numbers in the geographic numbering range, not just those in the 087 range. Many switchboards block 087 numbers for historical reasons, putting the holders at a disadvantage against the incumbent operators, particularly when competing for corporate clients.
Holdsworth reiterated that having the right licence was, however, useless unless Icasa moved quickly to implement pro-competitive regulations like number portability and carrier pre-selection (the latter enables the user to route a call via another operator than the carrier network).
In addition to the Vans, Icasa will also issue the incumbent operators Vodacom, Cell C, MTN, Neotel and Telkom with their converted I-ECS and I- ECNS licences, after it has finalised their licence-fee regulations.
Icasa said it would "in due course" issue another notice regarding those outstanding I-ECS and I-ECNS licences not listed.
Other licence categories whose licences are also ready for collection include individual (national in scope) and class (local or regional in scope) broadcasting licensees (for collection between 8-12 September and 15-30 September respectively), as well as class ECS and ECNS licensees (for collection between 25 September and 1 October).
- Fin24.com