The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has withdrawn its notice of inquiries into over-the-top services in the country, saying it will launch its investigations at a later date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This comes after the authority launched the inquiry in early September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the time of its announcement, ICASA said the inquiry would specifically investigate the impact of OTT services on licensees in the telecommunications, broadcasting and postal sectors in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OTT services are media services that stream content to digital, internet-connected devices and platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This includes the likes of Netflix, Disney+, WhatsApp, Amazon Prime, and YouTube, among many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ICASA first revealed its plan to conduct a market inquiry on OTT services in South Africa in its Annual Performance Plan (APP) for the 2026\/27 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said that it would produce a discussion paper on the findings of this market inquiry, which could include a response to the Fair Share debate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fair Share is a proposal that requires high-traffic OTT platforms to pay traditional telecommunications network operators for the construction and maintenance of broadband infrastructure.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n At the time of its APP, ICASA specifically noted that OTT services, such as Netflix and WhatsApp, had disrupted traditional broadcasting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It explained that unregulated OTT services from foreign providers were competing in the same market with regulated traditional linear broadcasters for audiences and revenue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, following the “launch” of the inquiry, ICASA withdrew its notice last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The withdrawal of the notices will allow ICASA to address administrative and procedural matters for better regulatory alignment,” it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, it said that the inquiry is still on the way, and it will just be coming “at a later date”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A new notice will be published that will provide greater context and clearer guidance for public participation, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Stakeholders who have already submitted comments…will have an opportunity to resubmit or further substantiate their comments when the new notices are republished,” ICASA said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ICASA said it will also communicate the publication of the new notices through its usual communication channels to ensure that stakeholders are afforded a full and proper opportunity to participate in the respective Inquiries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “ICASA apologises for any inconvenience caused by the withdrawal of the Notices.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ICASA has withdrawn its notice launching an inquiry into digital OTT platforms in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":810817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2107019723057561787","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2227023511451381","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18029267576881340","_sma_x_attempts":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[36,263,2118,1246],"class_list":["post-878197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-icasa","tag-netflix","tag-whatsapp","tag-youtube"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878197","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=878197"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":878204,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878197\/revisions\/878204"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}