The Democratic Alliance (DA) is harshly critical of the Ministry of Communications` policy directions on telecommunications, published a month ago, and has called for the creation of a single, new Communications Act to replace the fragmentary legislation that exists.
The closing date for public comments was Wednesday, 2 May, and a parliamentary portfolio committee has spent this week visiting several stakeholders to inform itself of the needs and wants of the industry.
In a statement to ITWeb, DA spokesman on communications, Dene Smuts, says: "Instead of the clear and predictable legal and regulatory framework we need for successful liberalisation, it is clear that the Minister of Communications` so-called Policy Directions have created uncertainty and embarrassment."
The statement calls the directions "cryptic", particularly in respect of the term "fixed-mobile services".
No clarity has been received by any of the industry players about what the term actually means, but MTN, Vodacom, Cell-C and the Cape Telecommunications User Forum have taken the term to mean that Telkom and the second national operator will each receive cellular licences.
It is clear that the Minister of Communications` so-called Policy Directions have created uncertainty and embarrassment.
Dene Smuts, spokesman, Democratic Alliance</P>
The incumbent cellular operators "suggest in their responses to the Minister that they should in turn be allowed to build their own fixed links and gateways in such a scenario," she says in the statement.
"We suspect that the unorthodox idea of `fixed-mobile` licences is the result of conceptual confusion about convergence and technological neutrality. Technological neutrality must necessarily be part of a new licensing regime but the allocation of spectrum is always a separate exercise."
The party fears conflicts with the existing Telecommunications Act will lead to "ad hoc amendments to the law, taking SA no further towards the regulatory regime for a new era which this absurd exercise proves we need".
"The ANC has been announcing its intention to cater for convergence and leapfrog the country and the continent into the digital age for some years," Smuts says. "Yet it created the converged regulator (ICASA) without amending the underlying statutes on the basis of which it regulates: the IBA Act, the Broadcasting Act and the Telecommunications Act. These in some cases run parallel to each other and even feature near-duplicate sections, and in some other respects conflict with each other."
The party has called on the ANC to amend existing statutes and introduce a "single new Communications Act...that recognises those changes which have already occurred as well as the fact that technology will continue to run ahead of the law".
Specifically, the statement calls for lighter touch legislation, referring to EU experience that "there is no objective justification for splitting up authorisations or licences in ever so many service categories" and that "heavy-handed market access regulation is not in line with the policy objective of stimulating a competitive and dynamic market in communications services".
Says Smuts: "We suggest the best way of achieving the widest and cheapest teledensity while simultaneously creating market opportunities for new telecommunications entrants is the wholesale unbundling of the local loop, not just offering handpicked licences in poor rural areas.
"There is a role for governments, but it is an enabling one: it is the private sector that has the skills to create jobs, wealth and innovative solutions, in short, to bridge the digital divide," she says.
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