Spectrum sell-off would show serious intent
It seemed too good to be true that the government would auction radio frequency spectrum by April this year. Authorities have after all made a string of broken promises in this regard over nearly a decade. Another postponement, this time at the behest of communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, earlier this month vindicated the sceptics.
The auction of highdemand spectrum ensures that extra spectrum is allocated fairly between established and newer entrants into the telecoms market.
It is necessary that cellphone network providers get the spectrum to satisfy growing consumer demand for high-speed technologies. The government also intends to build a wholesale open-access network to which it will sell access to various service providers and so stimulate competition.
This would generate new enterprises, lead to job creation and hopefully lower data costs for consumers. The authority aimed to start issuing next-generation technology — 5G — licences to telecoms operators by
2020. Last year President Cyril Ramaphosa said the government wanted to accelerate the licensing “to hasten the growth of mobile communications”.
In recent years, as tax revenue growth has slowed and several large state-owned companies have approached the National Treasury with the begging bowl, the Treasury has eyed the spectrum auction as an opportunity to raise much-needed cash. Spectrum auctions are common worldwide
and fetch top dollar. Recently, Canada’s auction of 600MHz spectrum realised C$3.47bn (R36.3bn). SA could likely see higher proceeds as it auctions spectrum in the 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz bands, some of which had been lying fallow at government-owned signal distributor Sentech before the agency returned the spectrum in 2013 because of the high fees to keep it.
Continued delays could see SA miss the window of opportunity for tech progress. This is what Andile Ngcaba, a “techpreneur”, former Dimension Data chair and a former director-general of the department of communications, cautioned as long ago as 2011. Then, Ngcaba urged speedier allocation of additional spectrum. His pleas fell on deaf ears, so Ngcaba moved to Silicon Valley in the US in 2017, though temporarily, to focus on 5G technology. The risk remains that other tech bright sparks may migrate, plying their talent elsewhere.
The delays in auctioning spectrum have in part been due to a revolving door of communications ministers and squabbles over policy direction between the ministry and industry, often playing out in court.
The current communications minister, Ndabeni-Abrahams, has postponed the auction for further consultation with the industry. She has promised a final policy directive on spectrum allocation by the end of this month.
And as SA heads to the polls next month, what better incentive for the minister to stick to the deadline and show that the government is finally serious about spectrum?
Treasury has eyed the spectrum auction as an opportunity to raise muchneeded cash