Public respondents to proposed amendments to the Telecommunications Act were left bemused and irritated after finding they were given only two days` notice to present their case to the parliamentary committee.
On Monday, the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications issued a press release saying it would discuss amendments to Sections 43 and 44 of the Telecommunications Act on 11 November and that interested parties should have their submissions in by Wednesday, 6 November.
According to a person close to the committee, the short notice was due to an administrative bungle, as the notices should have been issued several weeks ago.
The sections of the Act to be amended relate to interconnectivity and the changes would allow a body such as satellite facilities company Sentech to buy bandwidth wholesale from a national telecommunications operator such as Telkom.
While this may seem fairly straightforward following Sentech`s move into the multimedia market, industry observers are not quite sure how far the proposed changes will go. This is compounded by the committee`s own use of the term "public operator", in which the regulator, the Independent Communications Authority of SA, broadly includes the cellphone operators as well.
Bridges.org policy director Ewan McPhie says changes to the relevant sections of the Telecommunications Act could be a sign that concrete steps are being taken in the relaxation of the licensing regime as called for by senior members of the Department of Communications in the past.
"The department has made it crystal clear in the past that public operators must have access to the national telecommunications network at reasonable rates. However, there is no sign yet on just how far this would go and whether or not it will involve international links and not just domestic connections," McPhie says.
Tim Wyatt-Gunning, MD of Internet service provider (ISP) Storm, says the changes to the sections could be good news for the Internet provider industry. "If the changes allow at least Sentech to purchase facilities from Telkom and the second national operator at wholesale price, the industry would have three choices rather than just two."
Storm and some of the other ISPs say they would have liked to have had more time to consider the changes, but will have to be content with what happens at the hearing.
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