Less conversation - and more action - is the plea from industry as Parliament wraps up the Gauteng leg of its public hearings into the cost to communicate in SA today.
"[The industry and public] accepts that telecommunications costs in general are too high in SA. Now it is time to stop debating the issue and start doing something about it," said Alison Gillwald, executive director at Research ICT Africa, during a presentation to the Portfolio Committee on Communications (PCC) yesterday.
The action required to bring communications costs down, say industry players, primarily involves SA's mobile duopoly, Vodacom and MTN, which "need to start playing nice" and create an environment conducive to competition - rather than focus on market domination.
Telecoms consultant Ahmed Kajee says most of the representations made by organisations presenting to the PPC focused on aspects of mobile services, their costs, and the regulation that governs this.
"It is obvious to see why this is the case, given the high rate of mobile penetration in SA, and the fact that mobile broadband is more readily available than fixed-line broadband."
Kajee notes that most of the organisations criticised the country's dominant mobile players, tagging the companies' business practices as one of the main barriers to reducing the cost of communications in SA when it comes to mobile.
Wholesale access
Siyabonga Madyibi, director of regulatory affairs at Internet Solutions, says government - the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) and Department of Communications (DOC) in particular - needs to exercise its control and intervene in SA's mobile space.
"For our economy to grow, we need strategic regulatory intervention to reduce communications costs. Mobile data has, over the years, outgrown fixed-line services. Left unchecked, the mobile data access market remains insufficiently competitive at the wholesale level."
Madyibi says SA's mobile operators need to shift their mindsets and start offering Internet service providers wholesale access to their extensive mobile data networks.
"Around the world, operators are moving away from infrastructure ownership. Infrastructure is becoming a commodity rather than an owned asset."
Virtual dominance
Currently, he notes, access to wholesale mobile data services is strictly commercial, resulting in "virtual dominance by Vodacom and MTN in the wholesale mobile broadband upstream markets".
Madyibi cites SA's failed mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) market as a case in point. "[Vodacom and MTN] have no incentive to provide wholesale access to other service providers on a non-discriminatory basis - and this is evident in the fact that SA has no real MVNO to speak of. Virgin Mobile is almost a decade old and has under a million subscribers."
This is where the DOC and ICASA need to step in, says Madyibi - to reverse the negative impact the mobile operators' business models have had on retail prices - by mandating the operators to adopt an open access model.
As it stands, he says, Vodacom and MTN are able to price at a level that keeps profits significantly above the competitive level, resulting in artificially high prices and low usage. "This helps to drive shareholder value by controlling retail markets and eliminating competition."
Dominic Cull, regulatory advisor for the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA), notes that studies in the draft National Broadband Plan show that Vodacom provides at least 80% population coverage, but far less than 80% are taking advantage of 3G services to access the Internet or mobile services in general.
"Of the 35.2% of households that do not have Internet access, only 3% use their mobile phones to exercise such access [according to BMI-T].
"A significant percentage of the population is able to access mobile broadband, but is not able to afford to, or are limited in how they use the service."
What we have in SA, says Cull, is an affordability gap, rather than an access gap. Cull called on the PCC this week to press mobile operators to offer wholesale mobile data services.
Toothless authorities
However, the DOC and ICASA have been slated in the Parliamentary hearings by industry players that say the entities need to step up their game if SA is to see any tangible upshot from talks.
Keith Thabo, chairman of the National Association of Manufacturers in Electronic Components, was scathing in his summation yesterday, saying: "We don't have a regulator in SA."
PCC chairman Skhumbuzo Kholwane retorted: "We do have a regulator. Its name is ICASA. It might have its weaknesses, but it does exist. It is an important institution in SA."
The SA Communications Forum (SACF) - which represents key stakeholders in the telecoms market, including Vodacom, MTN, Telkom and Neotel - says the high cost to communicate damages SA's image and economic development in general.
The SACF notes that SA's ICT sector is in need of legislative, policy and regulatory interventions. Some of the recommendations the entity put forward at the PCC hearings this week include a focus on developing new ICT networks, applications and industries, the meaningful introduction of competition, addressing the DOC's "policy formulation paralysis" and time-bound consultative processes based on solid outcomes and a clear plan of action.
"[ICASA] must be adequately funded and instructed to conduct regulatory impact assessments from time to time. [The regulator] must never wait for disaster to happen before their interventions. It must act and implement its decisions (with teeth)."
ICASA has been criticised in the past for lacking muscle to enforce its authority and carry out its mandate of regulating the telecoms industry in terms of quality and competition.
Madyibi says the authority is "in a state of flux and self-paralysis", with several key projects having been unduly delayed or abandoned. The DOC, he says, has been ineffective because it is "internally focused and engulfed by internal management issues".
He says, due to this, the law remains static and lags way behind major technological developments. "We are in a constant mode of colloquiums with no measurable outcomes."
Democratic Alliance shadow minister of communications Marian Shinn says ICASA and the DOC "have few friends in the industry" and it is ultimately up to the PCC to influence legislation and supporting regulations to give the sector what it needs to be dynamic.
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