‘Stop regulating for the past’

TELKOM CEO: WE COULD FIND OURSELVES IN A CUL-DE-SAC

Policymakers need to anticipate what problems will be in 2025 – Maseko.

Telkom chief executive Sipho Maseko has urged policymakers to “anticipate what the problems will be in 2025” and to look at regulation holistically, instead of dealing with each of these on a standalone basis.

This, Maseko says, will create a telecoms sector with healthier competition and an environment more conducive to investment.

He was reacting to a number of proposed policies and regulations in the telecoms sector announced in recent weeks.

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) last week published draft call termination rates, while the draft of the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, which prescribes new conditions on the allocation of spectrum, is to be submitted to parliament this week.

At the 2018 South African Telecommunication Networks and Applications Conference (Satnac) outside Hermanus, Maseko warned that Eskom is a real example of what could happen to the telecoms sector.

Eskom has found itself in a “cul-de-sac” and he contends that both the regulator and market participants are not dealing with the “existential” questions. Rather they’re quibbling over unimportant matters.

“The same applies to the telecoms industry and Icasa.”

Last week, Telkom called the proposed cuts to call termination rates a “calamity” which would force job cuts. At Satnac, Maseko said that the regulations did not “recognise that the market is converged”.

“This specific regulatory approach is still thinking in terms of five, 10, 15 years ago.”

This isn’t a new phenomenon. He also shared an example from the late nineties where Telkom was mandated to build one million fixed lines.

“The tragedy was that it was at the beginning of mobile telephony. The intent was good, but we were building for the past, not for the future.”

Overall, Maseko was positive on government’s spectrum plan, even though he had been “hoping there’d be a lot more debate”.

Robert Nkuna, director-general in the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services (DTPS), told Satnac that “licensing should be concluded by this time next year”.

Nkuna said the department was focused on the allocation and licensing of spectrum in the 700MHz, 800MHz and 2.6GHz bands, before it deals with the licensing of 5G spectrum. Nkuna said the department sees “South Africa being among the first to deploy 5G”.

Maseko takes a broader view, cautioning this is “not just about whether spectrum is available

Approach is thinking in terms of five, 10, 15 years ago

or not”.

To his mind, regulation must do two things: enable investment and balance competition.

Maseko says the largest three operators – Vodacom, MTN and Telkom – together invest R25 billion to R30 billion a year. “What will it take [for us] to spend more?

“Individual, standalone policies may work. But, government needs to start looking at all the other elements of regulation.”

Tarrant works at YFM. He is attending Satnac as a guest of Telkom