Wide spectrum of benefits

Mobile broadband has the ability to contribute 1.8% growth to SA's gross domestic product, or R72 billion, by 2015, and about 28 000 direct jobs, plus related employment outside the industry. This is the view of GSM Association (GSMA) special government adviser Ross Bateson, who attended the AfricaCom conference, in Cape Town, this week.

The Department of Communications (DOC) and communications regulator ICASA must harmonise spectrum allocation in order to create economies of scale and allow for mobile broadband to make a meaningful contribution to economic growth, said Bateson. In particular, Bateson wants to see the release of the 2.6GHz spectrum, currently held by national signal distributor Sentech, but not used by the state-owned entity.

“By giving the full allocation of that spectrum to Sentech for its rollout (which never happened) there is now a situation where this frequency, which has 190MHz of spectrum in it, can now be used for supplying mobile broadband services,” Bateson said. The Sentech allocation was done in a piecemeal manner, he noted, and there is an urgent need to harmonise the allocation by making it a proper standard that will allow for direct economies of scale.

These economies mean cheaper handsets, bringing the country in line with international best practice, and allowing for the full deployment of the next GSM generation, known as LTE, or Long Term Evolution.
Bateson said the GSMA, which is made up of network operators from around the world, has been discussing the issue with the South African government for three years. “Initially, there was some resistance to the idea, because the plan was for Sentech to roll out its services. But that has since failed, and now the government and politicians appear to be warming to the idea of allocating the 2.6GHz frequency,” he said.

In July, ICASA issued an invitation to apply (ITA) for some of this frequency, but that was withdrawn as the full process was not clearly thought through. Bateson said the GSMA hopes the ITA will be re-issued soon.
“The business case for allocating this frequency to business is sound; all that is needed now is the political will.”

- ITWeb