{"id":314418,"date":"2019-05-02T10:37:35","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T08:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=314418"},"modified":"2019-05-02T10:37:35","modified_gmt":"2019-05-02T08:37:35","slug":"government-delays-decision-on-spectrum-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/314418\/government-delays-decision-on-spectrum-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Government delays decision on spectrum, again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Communications, Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams, will <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sanews.gov.za\/south-africa\/minister-addresses-icasa-media-reports\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">hold off<\/a><\/strong> on issuing the policy direction on unassigned high demand spectrum until after the establishment of the sixth administration.<\/p>\n<p>Ndabeni-Abrahams had originally <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/301638-final-policy-directive-on-spectrum-allocation-coming-this-month.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">promised<\/a> <\/strong>to issue a directive on the spectrum by the end of April 2019.<\/p>\n<p>The issuing of new spectrum is considered necessary to lessen resource constraints currently being experienced by the country&#8217;s current mobile operators and level the playing field and enable new entrants into the market.<\/p>\n<p>It is also expected to help drive down the price of data and reduce the cost to communicate and drive universal services and access.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fight with Icasa<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The issuing of the spectrum has been further <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/304578-icasa-in-danger-of-total-shutdown-as-minister-withholds-funding.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">complicated<\/a> <\/strong>by a war of words between the Department of Communications and regular Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa).<\/p>\n<p>Keabetswe Modimoeng, the acting chairperson of Icasa, stated that the dispute between the minister and Icasa is over wording in the regulator\u2019s annual performance plan.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, the Ministry wants Icasa &#8216;to hold back a bit&#8217; on 5G, he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To be honest, we\u2019re not entirely sure what the exact complaint is, as we have not had formal engagements with the minister,&#8221; Modimoeng said.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday (1 May), Ndabeni-Abrahams <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/304782-department-of-communications-pays-icasa-after-legal-threat.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">announced<\/a> <\/strong>that government has paid Icasa the first part of its annual budget, after the regulator threatened to take legal action against the department for non-payment.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/276967\/south-africa-to-start-4g-spectrum-auction-by-april-2019\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">South Africa to start 4G spectrum auction by April 2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The issuing of new spectrum is expected to help drive down the price of data and reduce the cost to communicate and drive universal services and access.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":84165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-314418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314418"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":314426,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314418\/revisions\/314426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}