The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has issued an explanatory note on local loop unbundling (LLU).
In it, the regulator explains that LLU, which has been in the works for several years, extends to licensees that provide mobile services and is not a process that is limited to Telkom.
Chairman Stephen Mncube has published the note, which complements the draft Bitsream and Shared/ Full Loop Access Regulations issued on 11 September. In the note, ICASA says the scope of the regulations is "considerably wider than simply the copper twisted pair local loop".
ICASA says this means Telkom is not the only licensee that will "be expected" to make its facilities available to other licensees. "This changes the emphasis and the dynamics of the discussion on the subject significantly."
The regulator hopes its definitions of local loop and Bitstream are "sufficiently" broad to clarify matters and cover the mobile sector, it says.
ICASA says there is no intention that any licensee providing access to its facilities should suffer "any" financial harm. It says the network owner can determine the price, but if the access seeker think this is too high, it can dispute the charges at ICASA.
The note provides background to its decisions in coming up with the review of the Call Termination Regulations as well as the rationale behind some content that has been included that requires input from the public.
Licensees have 30 working days from 6 December to comment, after which public hearings will be held. These have been scheduled for between 17 and 19 February 2014.
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