While many in industry consider the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) a toothless and ineffectual organisation, which has done little to deliver on telecoms liberalisation promises, the regulator announced its councillors would get a salary boost of 29%.
On Monday, ICASA said councillors would now receive an annual salary of between R678 000 to R726 000, which is the equivalent of a starting package for a deputy director-general.
Chairman Paris Mashile is not doing too badly either: he will take home between R870 000 and R940 000 a year - up from the paltry R639 000.
I can rest better now, knowing that they will not starve to death.
Telkom braces for competition
ICASA, which has done little to deliver on telecoms liberalisation promises, announced that its councillors would get a salary boost of 29%.
Martin Czernowalow, news editor, ITWeb
Telkom has invested almost R5 billion as it ups capital spend and moves towards a next-generation network, the fixed-line utility said at the beginning of the week.
The group plans to spend another R25 billion in the next four years, reaching a total of R30 billion in its customer centricity drive.
CTO Thami Msimango revealed Telkom's current network has an average life of 13 years, while the copper component is older than this. Neotel, the second national operator, will be expected to leapfrog straight onto an IP network.
It seems Telkom is putting up a real fight to stay ahead.
Waiting for the broadband bang
Of course, while ICASA's employees have been hard at work earning their salaries, it was reported on Tuesday that the African continent is home to less than 0.1% of the world's fixed and wireless broadband subscribers.
Deputy communications minister Roy Padayachie revealed this statistic, blaming the poor levels of broadband penetration on "poor national broadband strategies", often featuring an incumbent monopoly telecoms operator.
Very insightful.
So I guess we are still waiting for the "broadband fireworks" Padayachie promised earlier this year. If I had to put money on it, I would say there is a greater chance of ICASA councillors getting another pay hike, than there being any significant broadband policy changes any time soon. Or ever.
IT CEOs slumming it
Staying with the theme of salaries, Wednesday saw the depressing news that SA's lowest paid executives are in the IT sector, while telecoms CEOs score in the salary stakes. So says human capital and technology solutions company Mabili.
Mabili's 2006 Directors' Remuneration Report found the average CEO earned R5.35 million last year, a 24% increase on the previous year. But CEOs in the IT sector are not raking it in as much as their counterparts. The average CEO package in the IT sector reportedly amounts to a measly R3.5 million, while only two CEOs and one executive chairman received packages of more than R5 million.
Ag shame, they should apply at ICASA to boost their earnings.
Yet another ICASA probe
The current spectrum allocation regime, developed in line with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, has been criticised by stakeholders as unfair, as it provided Telkom and Sentech with the lion's share of spectrum, at little cost.
Fear not, ICASA is on it. The regulator is inviting industry comment regarding the procedures and criteria for awarding radio spectrum frequency licences for competing applications.
Current regulations hold that mobile operators each pay an annual fee of R5 million, as well as R100 000 per MHz and "in kind" obligations for their 3G licences. Not Telkom (co-owner of Vodacom) and Sentech.
Nice to know that yet another formidable ICASA investigation will get to the bottom of this. Remember the probe into ADSL pricing? Also, the ongoing investigation into mobile pricing? We're in safe hands here.
Who wants arivia.kom?
Yesterday, industry speculation continued about the future shareholding of arivia.kom, which is set for privatisation.
"Arivia is a hard call," said Mark Walker, International Data Corporation director of business development for IDC Middle East and Africa. He speculated that Dimension Data, Telkom-BCX, and possibly a couple of the internationals could be keen.
He also mentioned Choice Technologies, EOH, GijimaAst, Faritec and Datacentrix.
Another analyst said he'd be surprised if any of the listed companies would be interested, saying that such companies may be "nervous of what they're buying, from a cultural point of view".
Considering the rumours of disarray and problems within arivia, I'd be nervous too.
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