Minister Jay Naidoo has withdrawn the draft Telecommunications Amendment Bill, which was tabled in Parliament this week. The bill, concerned with roaming and number portability, was aimed at facilitating the licensing of a third provider.
The withdrawal does not, however, affect the issue of the third license. "The third license will still be issued in July as originally planned," says Mandy Jean Woods, spokesperson for the ministerial office.
A statement by Naidoo said the bill had been withdrawn on the grounds that insufficient consultation had taken place and that stakeholders had raised valid concerns.
The bill stipulated that providers must allow roaming by their competition unless the request was "unreasonable". The reasonability of such requests would be determined by the ministerial office and SATRA, the regulatory body.
"The bill would have compromised MTN`s commercial prerogative to negotiate the sharing of its infrastructure," says MTN spokesman Jacques Sellschop. "We welcomed the minister`s statement that providers would be encouraged but not compelled to allow roaming, but the wording of the bill had us worried."
MTN also did not like the idea of enforced number portability. "Both MTN and Vodacom have invested heavily in branding linked to the 082 and 083 numbers," says Sellschop. "To allow the new provider access to them would erode their marketing value to us. Those numbers are closely linked to our branding."
Vodacom`s Joan Joffe says the company is equally pleased with the withdrawal. "We welcome the extra time this has given us to make submissions on the bill."
It is unlikely the bill will be tabled again before the general elections in June.
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