{"id":399003,"date":"2020-05-18T11:36:37","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T09:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=399003"},"modified":"2020-05-18T13:31:39","modified_gmt":"2020-05-18T11:31:39","slug":"mobile-operators-will-stop-getting-access-to-free-spectrum-in-november","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/399003\/mobile-operators-will-stop-getting-access-to-free-spectrum-in-november\/","title":{"rendered":"Mobile operators will stop getting access to free spectrum in November"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) says that the temporary free spectrum that was released in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic will be closed at the end of November.<\/p>\n<p>Presenting to parliament on Friday (15 May), Icasa said that it plans to place the temporary spectrum on auction in December 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Icasa&#8217;s acting chairperson Keabetswe Modimoeng told the committee that Icasa believes that it will get &#8216;attractive offers&#8217; from bidding companies because they will have &#8216;experienced open spectrum&#8217; and will want to regain access.<\/p>\n<p>He added that Icasa will complete the distribution of spectrum to the wholesale open-access network (WOAN) in 2021.<\/p>\n<p>In April, Icasa released emergency spectrum to allow the country\u2019s mobile operators to meet the spike in broadband services demand due to South Africa\u2019s coronavirus lockdown.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe intend to take the necessary care in this regard and to ensure that there are no irreversible anti-competitive effects for the market,\u201d Modimoeng said at the time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn addition, we really urge licensees to work with us for the benefit of all South Africans in a collaborative effort so that the emergency release of the spectrum can make a meaningful contribution to curb the spread and flatten the curve of the Covid-19 pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yQG2wUIAHig\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/387783\/mobile-operators-get-emergency-spectrum-to-help-with-internet-demand-during-south-africas-coronavirus-lockdown\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mobile operators get \u2019emergency spectrum\u2019 to help with internet demand during South Africa\u2019s lockdown<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) says that the temporary free spectrum that was released in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic will be closed at the end of November.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":309618,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-399003","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\/399003","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=399003"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":399065,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399003\/revisions\/399065"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/309618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}