Cell C pleased with 1800MHz allocation

Johannesburg, 16 Mar 2001

Cell C, the consortium to which the third cellular licence will be issued unless a last-minute court bid by competitor Nextcom succeeds, has expressed general approval of the telecoms policy outline released by government this week.

"We wouldn`t be comfortable unless there was something to be comfortable about, and we are very comfortable," says Cell C spokesman and director Zwelakhe Mankazana.

He says the consortium will not oppose a proposed directive that the 1800MHz spectrum "should be allocated fairly among all operators", including Telkom and the second national operator as well as MTN and Vodacom.

"There is sufficient 1800MHz spectrum for many uses, although it may not be appropriate to all uses," Mankazana says. "There should be enough clean spectrum for fixed-mobile as well as the incumbent cellular operators."

Vodacom and MTN were denied access to the frequency late last year after a protracted battle with the Independent Communications Authority of SA. The operators said they were running out of bandwidth in the current 900MHz frequency in high-traffic areas.

Telkom and the second national operator will use the bandwidth to provide virtual fixed-line services in areas where copper wiring is not immediately available, or installation of physical lines is unfeasible.

"This doesn`t in any way affect the business case of any of the mobile operators," says Mankazana. "It just gives statutory effect to convergence."

An objection by Cell C would likely have caused a considerable delay in the issue of the spectrum, as it was originally envisioned that the third cellular operator would have exclusive rights to 1800MHz in order to kick-start its business. But Mankazana says Cell C has always advocated a level playing field with general use of dual-band technology.

He did, however, raise a question as to why third generation (3G) mobile licences are to be offered to Telkom and its national competitor as well as cellular operators, saying the consortium would likely make a submission on the matter once the entire policy outline had been published.

MTN representatives were not immediately available for comment, and Vodacom said it would comment fully on the issues after the outline publication towards the end of this month.