The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has confiscated more than 10 cordless phones and several modems that were interfering with Vodacom's Cape Town network.
The interference had disrupted Vodacom's network for about a year before the cordless phones were confiscated, and ICASA has yet to decide whether to take action against any culprits.
The handsets, which are not licensed for use in SA, are being brought in from the US and operate in Vodacom's frequency band. The interference is now being picked up in other parts of the country.
Vodacom's executive head of media relations, Richard Boorman, says interference from illegal cordless telephones is increasingly having a negative impact on Vodacom's services, and thousands of consumers have complained about bad network quality.
Network operators are required to provide ICASA with reports every six months showing networks are available more than 95% of the time, the rate of failed calls does not exceed 3%, and that 90% of all faults are cleared within three days. If they do not meet these requirements, they face fines.
ICASA launched the end-user and subscriber service charter in the middle of 2009. The first set of reports, released in August, showed that MTN, Vodacom, Cell C, iBurst, Neotel, Telkom, Sentech and Internet Solutions did not live up to regulatory requirements for the 2009/10 financial year.
According to the reports, SA's telecoms operators did not completely comply with ICASA's end-user and subscriber service charter regulations. However, Vodacom's network quality is now being affected by handsets that have come into SA without being approved for use.
Blame game
The problem came to light when Vodacom investigated customer complaints. “Thousands of customers are seeing some impact on their service, and the frustrating part is that because people don't know about this issue, they blame Vodacom's network rather than the real cause,” says Boorman.
The operator, SA's largest, started engaging with ICASA about the problem more than a year ago, Boorman explains. “The level of complaints increased earlier this year, which prompted another concerted effort to find a solution.”
Interference problems did not appear overnight, says Boorman. Complaints escalated as more unlicensed equipment was being used, and the problem has now spread to other areas around the country, he notes.
“As soon as we were aware of the issue, we raised it with ICASA, as it is the only body that has enforcement powers. The issue hasn't been sorted out - it's an ongoing problem, and one that is very frustrating to us and to our customers.”
Vodacom initially picked up problems in Cape Town in areas such as Sea Point, where all its base stations are now affected to some extent, says Boorman. “We're now seeing the impact spreading to other cities as well.”
Boorman explains that the interference is specific to Vodacom because the illegal equipment operates on frequencies assigned to it in the 1 920MHz to 1 930MHz range. Interference specifically impacts uplink throughput on 3G services, which results in slow uploads and sending of e-mail.
Vodacom has been working with ICASA to enforce the law when it comes to the use of illegal equipment, says Boorman. Although the operator can identify where illegal equipment is being used and ask owners of this equipment to stop using it, it has no enforcement power, he adds.
“The response we typically get when we confront people using this equipment is utter disregard for the fact that they are affecting many other users' services and downright refusal to stop using the equipment.” The operator must rely on ICASA to use its enforcement powers, he adds.
No action yet
However, despite the amount of time it took ICASA to investigate and confiscate equipment, Boorman says the authority has been proactively involved in trying to sort out the issue for “some time”.
ICASA spokesman Paseka Maleka says its Cape Town regional office received a number of interference complaints from Vodacom and initiated investigations to identify the source.
“So far, just over 10 phones have been confiscated and the investigations are still continuing and we hope to find more, not only in Cape Town but other parts of the country where interferences will be reported,” says Maleka.
“None of these devices had ICASA-type approval stickers; and based on the frequency of operation, would be unlikely to ever be type-approved in this country.”
There have been no other reports of interference and the authority has yet to decide what action to take. Maleka says reports of confiscations are sent to CEO Themba Dlamini for a directive on to how to take the matter forward.
Maleka adds that the bulk of the confiscated equipment was from the US, which operates in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU)-defined region two. SA falls into region one.
The ITU segments the globe into three regions to manage global radio spectrum, and each area has its own set of frequency allocations.
Region one comprises Europe, Africa, the Middle East, west of the Persian Gulf, including Iraq, the former Soviet Union and Mongolia. Region two includes the Americas, Greenland and some of the eastern Pacific Islands, while the third region covers most of non-former-Soviet-Union Asia, east of and including Iran, and most of Oceania.
Maleka says the public must look out for ICASA-approved stickers on handsets and other apparatus. He did not respond to a query as to why it took the authority so long to act.
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