Government looking to merge state telcos into single broadband company
A plan to merge two of South Africa’s state-owned telecom firms into a single broadband network company will be reviewed by the cabinet in December, a senior government official told lawmakers on Tuesday.
According to a report by Reuters, the government hopes to combine the fibre network and high-speed bandwidth capacity of Broadband Infraco with Sentech’s satellite capability, boosting connections to remote areas as it aims to lift mobile broadband coverage to 80% of the population by 2019.
“We don’t want a top-heavy company, but a company that has sharp capacity to aggregate what exists in South Africa so we don’t duplicate,” said Robert Nkuna, director-general at the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services.
Nkuna told a parliamentary committee the law would need to be amended to allow for the establishment of a National Broadband Network (NBN) by around 2020.
The firm will be able to strike access agreements with state-owned firms, such as power utility Eskom, and eventually private sector firms, said Nkuna.
However this would not lead to a monopoly, he said.
Nkuna also indicated that the department was not in favour of selling off Sentech, which carries more than 90% of South Africa’s radio and television signal, to the private sector to help fund the new company.
Read: SA regulator announces plans to release LTE spectrum to mobile operators
Loading ...