The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) and the Lesotho Telecommunications Authority (LTA) yesterday signed an agreement they characterised as a landmark for regional co-operation.
The memorandum of understanding commits the two bodies to resolving disagreements on telecommunications and broadcasting. Issues such as frequency interference, interconnection and the supply of services in the no man`s land between the countries are on the immediate agenda.
It is also to promote roaming agreements between cellular operators in the two countries. A large percentage of Lesotho citizens cross the border on a regular basis.
ICASA chairman Mandla Langa says the agreement was spurred by a cellphone signal spill-over complaint received in June last year. Because major population centres in the landlocked Lesotho - including the capital city Maseru - are situated very near to the border, locals could make calls using the South African cellular networks. Such calls, although cross-border, are billed as local South African calls as they bypass all Lesotho operators.
"This is a problem we could not solve on an ad hoc basis," says Langa.
It is also not a problem that will be solved with the signing of the memorandum. The regulators are waiting for a survey that will quantify the problem and make it possible to select a technical solution, such as tilting down certain antennas or reducing broadcast power. Yet this will only minimise the problem.
"You can`t cut [frequency] exactly with a knife at the border," says ICASA GM Wojtek Skowronski.
Despite the limitations on what can be achieved, the agreement is seen as a model for other Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. It is the first of its kind for members of TRASA, the Telecommunications Regulators Association of Southern Africa, an organ of SADC; and the two regulators hope it will set an example.
"We hope our fellow TRASA members will emulate this agreement," says LTA head Jacob Sebatane.
TRASA models itself on co-operation between telecommunications regulators in Europe, where frequency co-operation is also necessitated by the close proximity of large populations in neighbouring countries.
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