ANALYSTS believe the South African government’s move not to appeal against a Supreme Court ruling over an earlier court decision to allow self-provisioning, gave the South African telecommunications sector the potential to become one of the most progressive and competitive in the world.
“With the threat of a successful appeal remoed, South African businesses and consumers should soon benefit from increased choice and lower costs as a result of a High Court ruling that effectively opened the industry to more competition,” said ana analyst.
This follows the Pretoria High Court judgment recently, which ruled in favour of telecommunications group Altech in a case that found that value-added network service (VANS) licensees are allowed to build their own networks in competition with the incumbent operators.
The Court subsequently refused the Communications Minister, Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, the right to appeal against its judgement.
Mike Silber, regulatory advisor to the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (ISPA) said, “We are pleased that the Minister seems prepared to accept the Court’s decision. Our members are eager to start transforming the market to make it more open and competitive to the benefit of consumers and businesses,” he said.
He said the court ruling will allow the companies to attract investment and expand their networks.
“ISPA welcomes the news that ICASA has already announced its intention to issue electronic communications network service (ECNS) and electronic communications service (ECS) licences to VANS following the high court ruling. We trust that the regulator will now start looking at the other challenges that face the industry, such as frequency spectrum allocation. We hope that ICASA and the incumbents will cooperate in efficient usage of this national resource,” he concluded.
By ITnewsAfrica.com
