Communications: Mixed messages on spectrum licensing

The long-awaited policy directive on radio frequency spectrum licensing is still under discussion, according to the Department of Communications, notes Pam Saxby for Legalbrief Policy Watch. Announced in the final paragraph of a media statement on broader Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) matters, the decision appears to have been prompted by last week’s Icasa press release noting, among other things, that – at the time – the directive was expected to be issued ‘soon’.

Welcoming the preliminary findings of a Competition Commission data services market inquiry now nearing completion, the Icasa statement tended to suggest that recommendations included in the summary concerned are ‘broadly in line’ with Icasa’s own thinking. Among other things, they called for the ‘urgent assignment’ of high-demand spectrum. In the commission’s view, spectrum licensing ‘should be contingent on obligations to pass through cost reductions from greater spectrum access’. It has been left to SA’s sixth democratic administration to take the process forward.

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