Public gets chance to comment on USALs

Johannesburg, 20 Oct 2003

The Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) says the 14 applications for the 10 underserviced area licences (USALs) have been made available for public scrutiny and comment.

Comments and criticisms of the bids must be received by ICASA by 30 October, after which the applicants will be given a period in which to respond.

The USALs form part of the government`s ongoing liberalisation of the telecommunications market, with the aim being to license small operators to serve certain areas with low penetration of telephones.

According to ICASA`s spokesman on the USAL issue, Michelle Hajari, there had been a delay in placing the bids in the public forum, due to the fact that the regulator had received requests from some of the bidders to keep segments of their bids confidential.

"ICASA did invite these bidders to remove the segments they wished to keep confidential from the bid documents, but they have since agreed to leave the information in," says Hajari.

"At present we are trying to arrange to get copies of the bids to the municipal libraries in the areas where the licences are to be awarded, and we are also placing copies of all the bids on a single CD-ROM, which will be available at the ICASA library for a nominal fee."

She says that once the public comments are in and the bidders have had a chance to respond, the next step will be public hearings.

"The USAL hearings will take place in the specific region that the licence is intended for. This will be to ensure that the public who will be served by the licences also gets a chance to participate in the process.

"We are still busy finalising the venues for the hearings, so we do not have specific dates as of yet. Hopefully we will be able to hold at least some of them before year-end, but with the December holiday period looming, the hearings may have to take place early next year."