Vodacom has announced it will proceed with the acquisition of Neotel – but has dropped the group’s spectrum from the deal.<\/p>\n
In a market update,\u00a0Vodacom said it will no longer acquire Neotel’s licences for spectrum,\u00a0and its\u00a0ECN and ECNS licences.<\/p>\n
The mobile operator will still acquire all assets relating to\u00a0Neotel’s fixed-line business.<\/p>\n
However, the group will still gain access to Neotel’s spectrum through other means – Neotel will offer a roaming arrangement to all the mobile network operators including Vodacom.<\/p>\n
Vodacom and Neotel have submitted to the Competition Tribunal the signed transaction documentation in respect of the restructured transaction.<\/p>\n
The Competition Tribunal will consider the new transaction at a pre-hearing set down for 10 December 2015.<\/p>\n
The Competition Tribunal called off a hearing regarding the original Vodacom-Neotel merger in late November, after Vodacom announced plans to restructure the R7-billion deal.<\/p>\n
The deal has faced heavy opposition and threats of legal action from all network operators over the issue of Neotel’s spectrum.<\/p>\n
Vodacom’s competitors believe that gaining access to Neotel’s spectrum through the deal would have put the operator at an unfair advantage.<\/p>\n
Spectrum is vital to all operators to roll out next-generation networks which offer higher speeds and better quality. Government has been sitting on the resource for a number of years, and consistently fails at opening it up to companies.<\/p>\n
Vodacom puts R7bn Neotel deal on ice to discuss new terms<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Vodacom-Neotel deal gets approval<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Vodacom-Neotel tribunal hearing postponed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n