The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) has postponed the publication of the local loop unbundling document for at least another two weeks.
The authority says in a statement that the council decided on the delay to allow ICASA to “finalise the finer details in the actual document”. ICASA initially expected to publish the discussion document last week.
Local loop unbundling (LLU) has been on the cards for at least five years. After several delays, the Department of Communications last November finally set a deadline for the process to be wrapped up by November this year.
According to ICASA's strategic plan for 2011-2014, LLU regulations are a priority project for this financial year. However, Telkom previously warned there are too many variables to sort out before the local loop can be unbundled, and the November deadline isn't realistic.
Concerns
The rationale behind unbundling the last mile is to increase competition and reduce telecoms costs by allowing telcos access to end-users without having to build their own, costly, infrastructure for access connectivity.
Telkom's ownership of the last mile of copper between its exchanges and end-users has resulted in new operators innovating through wireless technology to gain access to houses or businesses to provide services.
Once the discussion document has been gazetted, there will be a public consultation period, although there aren't currently any timeframes for this process. Trade union Solidarity has warned that unbundling the fixed-line could lead to job losses because Telkom will lose revenue.
Spokesman Marius Croucamp said: “Solidarity is very concerned about the potential effects of the planned LLU and will definitely take part in the consultation process at ICASA to minimise job losses.”
Solidarity says alternate forms of increasing broadband access should be investigated.
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