Telkom to release spectrum
Telkom has confirmed that will return spectrum to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa, Icasa, as it migrates its legacy services to next generation technologies.
South Africa is currently embroiled in a escalating battle for spectrum, as dominant and minor operators claw at Icasa for a piece of the frequency pie – as demand for data and expanding networks push currently-help spectrum capabilities to their limits.
In April, state-owned enterprise Sentech said it would return its 2.6GHz and 3.5GHz spectrum to the regulator for the South African communications sector.
Sentech CEO, Setumo Mohapi, said that fact that the cost of spectrum had grown tenfold was a big consideration in returning the spectrum to Icasa.
Regarding the release of spectrum, Telkom said in a statement on Wednesday (4 November):
“Telkom is continuously assessing the viability of legacy technologies which have reached their estimated useful life. In the case of wireless technologies, decisions in regard to the future use/or disposition of the frequency bands which they utilise is part of this process.
“We will be migrating services provided by these technologies to our new, state-of-the-art Next Generation Technologies to ensure that we continue to serve our customers – our utmost priority. Of course, if Telkom does not intend to use a particular frequency band in the future, it will be returned to Icasa to enable uses.”
The telco noted that it is licensed to use the 2.4 GHz band (i.e. 2.3-2.5 GHz) and is using this band to provide FWA services, in particular in rural areas.
“Whereas Telkom has identified these technologies for migration (due also to the negative effect of harmful interference in the ISM band (i.e. 2.4-2.5 GHz)), such migration is complex due to, amongst others, lack of suitable sub-1 GHz spectrum to be used in the rural areas.”
“A portion of the 2.4 GHz band has been refarmed for Telkom’s 2.3 GHz LTE network. Some parts of the 2.4 GHz band could eventually be returned to Icasa once migration has been completed.”
The telco stressed that it will not return spectrum in 1.8 GHz band.
It added that migrating WiMAX from the 3.5 GHz band was a business decision, “and these services will be replaced with 3G/LTE or satellite.”
Telkom did not provide a timeline as to when this spectrum would be handed back to Icasa.
More on Telkom and spectrum
Operators hunger for spectrum: report
Spectrum trading proposed for South Africa
Loading ...
