Beware Dongas! An Assessment of the Road Ahead for Under-Serviced Area Licensing for Telecommunications Operators in South Africa
Date
2005-12-15
Authors
Van Leijden, Fabian
Monasso, Ton
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Publisher
LINK Centre, University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg
Abstract
In 2001 the South African Government began the process of Under-Serviced Area Licensing (USAL) as a major effort aimed at getting telecommunications into deep rural areas throughout the country. The USAL policy has three objectives: universal service and access; black economic empowerment; and stimulation of market competition. To fulfil these three objectives, the policy has to take into account the tensions that exist between the three objectives. The South African USAL process is not designed to mitigate these conflicts and is, therefore, unable to attain the objectives. While the policy is aimed at offering community-based and community-owned organisations the opportunity to provide telecommunications services, the licensing process and the licence conditions do not reflect this. Financial and educational support from the Government is minimal. Both the licensing process and the business process of building a telecommunications network are expensive, and gaining capital is difficult for these small companies. It should also be noted, regarding the business case of the companies, that while at the outset this case was already fairly weak, changes to the licensing conditions and a saturating cellular market over time have further seriously weakened this business case, rendering the viability of the companies questionable. For the process to be successful, Government bodies have to provide more support to the companies, and propagate a stable and clear regulatory environment.
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Citation
Van Leijden, F., & Monasso, T. (2005). Beware dongas! An assessment of the road ahead for under-serviced area licensing for telecommunications operators in South Africa. The Southern African Journal of Information and Communication (SAJIC), 6, 22-47. https://doi.org/10.23962/10539/19804