The second national operator (SNO) should be licensed by June and Indian industrial group Tata will own 26% of it, says Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) chairman Mandla Langa.
Langa says ICASA is still awaiting the final shareholder agreement from the SNO. Once that has been received, the licensing procedure should be straightforward, he says.
"The Ministry of Communications has indicated to us that Tata would be taking up the 26% outstanding stake in the SNO. Tata has also requested a meeting with us," he said.
Langa spoke to ITWeb following his closing speech at the Digital Africa Summit in Cape Town yesterday.
Representatives from regulators in other African countries attended the summit, with the main topic of conversation being how to manage telecommunications liberalisation on the continent.
During his speech, Langa touched on the ramifications of liberalisation, which included the digitising of television.
"Liberalisation brings ramifications that affect everyone, most of all the individual consumer, and this justifies government intervention. However, policies have not kept pace with the changes in technology," he said.
On the question of the self-provisioning of value-added network services (VANS), Langa said: "We are still determining what the regulations would be; a lot would depend on the legal definition. While the communications minister [Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri] has made her intentions clear, the problem is that Section 40 of the Telecommunications Act has not been repealed," he said.
This section describes what a VANS licence-holder may or may not do, and until 1 February, prohibited VANS from providing voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) services.
"In my view, one cannot put the fetters back on VOIP; it will find its own way of diverting around legislation and technology."
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