ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS: ICASA BEGINS INDIVIDUAL NETWORK SERVICE LICENSING INQUIRY

ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS: ICASA BEGINS INDIVIDUAL NETWORK SERVICE LICENSING INQUIRY

• 25 November 2025
• Communications & Digital Technologies
• SA Legal Academy

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has gazetted a notice announcing the commencement of an inquiry into the merits or otherwise of issuing new individual electronic communications network service licences. As the first phase of that inquiry, a questionnaire has been published with the Government Gazette notice requiring stakeholder input by 30 January 2026.

The inquiry is being conducted in response to a ministerial directive gazetted in August 2025 on which SA Legal Academy reported at the time. The directive required ICASA to establish whether issuing new individual electronic communications network service licences is likely to:

• improve competition, and
• facilitate universal access to the services concerned.

To that end, the questionnaire covers a range of issues including:

• the extent to which competition is enhanced or hindered by transferring an existing licence to a new owner or changing who controls that licence
• new licensee ‘appropriate’ technologies, network architecture and/or spectrum frequencies, and
• scenarios possibly requiring additional regulatory interventions.

Please click the links below for more information:

• Government Gazette notice with questionnaire
• August 2025 SA Legal Academy report

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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