Icasa to oppose Telkom’s legal spectrum expiry bid
THE INDEPENDENT Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) yesterday confirmed plans to oppose Telkom’s legal bid to prevent the expiry of the temporary Covid-19 spectrum allocation. Icasa allocated the temporary spectrum licences at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic last year to help maintain good quality broadband services as people began working from home.
Icasa said it believed that the circumstances and considerations that informed the issuing of the radio frequency spectrum at the onset of the pandemic never contemplated that the spectrum would be licensed on a longterm or semi-permanent basis.
“The authority will, therefore, be derelict in its duty if it were, by default, to perpetuate what is now becoming an anti-competitive, unfair, and unjust spectrum licensing regime under the guise of pandemic relief,” the regulator said in a statement.
In August Icasa said holders of temporary spectrum licences were to wind up their temporary spectrum licences by the end of next month.
Icasa said public interest dictated that high-demand spectrum be licensed without delay through an open, competitive, and permanent assignment process, in a manner that fulfils the public policy objectives in terms of the Electronic Communications Act.
Last month Icasa published an expedited timetable for the permanent licensing of this spectrum through an open, market-based approach by the end of March next year.
“In Icasa’s view, it would be unfortunate if the authority’s efforts to licence
this spectrum were continually to be frustrated by recourse to the courts to allow the temporary, ad hoc Covid-19 spectrum arrangements to remain in place in perpetuity,” said Icasa.
However, partially State-owned Telkom approached the court to review and set aside Icasa’s decision, citing that it believed the removal of temporary spectrum while Disaster Management Act regulations remained in place would have a negative effect on the group’s
network and customers.
In his founding affidavit filed at the Pretoria High Court last week, Telkom group executive: regulatory affairs and government affairs Siyabonga Mahlangu said Icasa’s decision to withdraw temporary spectrum next month appeared to be based on a misstatement that the Covid-19 pandemic and the Covid-19 crisis had passed and that the country is no longer in a time of crisis.
“It is clear that for as long as the
Covid-19 pandemic and declaration of the national state of disaster persist, and with it the demands on mobile networks and the need for adequate spectrum to meet these demands, preserving the overarching benefits derived from the licensing of temporary radio frequency spectrum remains crucial,” Mahlangu said.
Mahlangu said Icasa’s decision was so unreasonable that no reasonable person could have so exercised the power.