Call Termination - Market Review 2014

Posted by LA Thornton on Thursday, May 22, 2014
ICASA, in response to the court ruling that its 2014 call termination regulations were invalid, called on all ECNS and ECS licensees to respond to four questionnaires.  Included is an information request in respect of a section 4B market inquiry into VoIP.  The completed questionnaires are due 13 June 2014.  The deadline for the call termination questionnaires is 20 June 2014 and for the VoIP questionnaire, 3 July 2014.
 

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ICASA Amendment Act comes into force

Posted by LA Thornton on Thursday, May 22, 2014
The President determined 10 May 2014 the day the ICASA Amendment Act came into force.

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President assents to ICASA Amendment and EC Amendment Acts

Posted by LA Thornton on Wednesday, April 9, 2014
The President has signed into law the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) Amendment Act, 2013 and the Electronic Communications (EC) Amendment Act, 2013, both on 7 April 2014.  The ICASA Amendment Act will come into force on a date to be set by the President and the EC Amendment Act on a date or dates to be set by the Minister of Communications.

Many of the amendments appear to be intended to clear up procedural difficulties in the primary legislation, which has
hamper...
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Amendment to Service Licence Fee Regulations

Posted by LA Thornton on Monday, April 8, 2013
On 28 March 2013, ICASA published the General Licence Fees Regulations, 2012, repealing the Licence Fees Regulations of 2009. 

The new regulations change the way in which licence fees are calculated.  The fees used to be based on profit.  Now they are based on revenue.  In addition, the percentage applied to the revenue is on a sliding scale, from 0.15% to 0.35% for revenue above 1 000 000 000. 

The new regulations came into effect on 1 April 2013.

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Independent Communications Authority of South Africa Amendment Bill, 2012

Posted by LA Thornton on Tuesday, November 27, 2012
The DoC has published the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa Amendment Bill, 2012.  Comments are due 10 January 2013. 

The Bill proposes a number of changes, including the following.

*It creates a new Complaints and Compliance Commission, separate from ICASA, and appointed by the Minister.  The Commission will hear all complaints between licensees and licensees and ICASA. 

*Where before ICASA had to only consider policy directions issued by the Minister, the Bill proposes tha...
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Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, 2012

Posted by LA Thornton on Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The Minister of Communications has published the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, 2012 for comment due 29 August 2012.

Two classes of individual ECNS licences?

In the Memorandum on the objects of the Bill, one is led to believe that the amendment to section 20 of the Act would limit the rights of certain individual ECNS licensees in respect of gaining rights of way.  However, upon examination of the proposed amendment, it appears that this would not be the result.  The proposed amendme...
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ICASA Licensees' Reporting Obligations

Posted by LA Thornton on Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Did you know that ICASA ECS and ECNS licensees must submit approximately 18 reports to ICASA every year?  These reports include, for example, information on tariffs, network coverage, complaints, and licensee finances.

Some of ICASA's regulations require annual reporting, such as financial reporting, some require bi-annual reporting and some require quarterly reporting, such as network coverage and other "sectoral planning" data.

If you are interested in a guide to licensee's compliance obligat...
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Compliance Procedure Manual Regulations

Posted by LA Thornton on Tuesday, January 31, 2012
ICASA published Compliance Procedure Manual Regulations and an Explanatary Note on 15 December 2011.  The regulations repeat obligations found in other regulations, such as the requirement to file tariffs, call for the submission of additional reports by licensees, such as annual reporting on licensee details, and set out forms for the submission of information to ICASA by licensees. 

Lisa Thornton Inc has developed a compliance manual setting out the licensee requirements found in all EC Ac...
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Local Loop Unbundling

Posted by LA Thornton on Friday, December 2, 2011
ICASA announced its findings in its inquiry re the ICASA Framework for Introducing Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) on 30 Nov 2011.

1.  ICASA will consult, starting Feb 2012, on the process to establish an Access Line Deficit Recovery Scheme.
2.  ICASA will engage the industry to ensure the price of IP Connect is reduced, from March 2012.
3.  ICASA will engage the industry, starting Feb 2012, to ensure a Bitstream product is introduced by Nov 2012.
4.  ICASA will conduct a Regulatory Impact Assessmen...
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Electronic Communications Amendment Bill, 2011

Posted by LA Thornton on Wednesday, November 9, 2011
UPDATE:  The proposed Electronic Communications Amendment Bill was withdrawn on 23 Nov 2011.

The Department of Communications published the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill on the 4th Nov 2011, for public comment, due 19 Dec 2011.  The Bill seeks to do a number of things, including -

- ensure that ICASA and the USAASA follow policy directions issued by the Minister (now, policy directions must only be considered)
- change the distinction between individual and class ECS licences to coin...
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