ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS: INDIVIDUAL NETWORK SERVICE LICENSING INQUIRY

The Department of Communications & Digital Technologies has gazetted a notice directing the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) to undertake an inquiry into the contribution made by new individual electronic communications network services licensees to improved competition and universal access.

The move appears to have been informed somewhat belatedly by a December 2019 report on the Competition Commission’s data services market inquiry, which among other things blamed ever-increasing data prices and relatively low domestic internet access on ‘inadequate or non-existent competition’ and the ensuing market power of dominant firms.

In terms of sub-section 5(6) of the 2005 Electronic Communications Act, in the absence of a ministerial policy directive ICASA may neither invite/accept nor consider individual electronic communications network service licence applications.

Published by SA Legal Academy Policy Watch

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