Almost every presentation by the telecommunications industry opposed changing the Electronic Communications (EC) Act to accommodate the speedy licensing of government`s new broadband supplier Infraco.
In a drawn-out session before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Communications yesterday, 13 presentations were made to politicians, covering why the Act should not be changed.
Reasons provided included the fact there is already heavy state involvement in the sector, that it would set back the liberalisation process and that the communications minister already has sufficient powers to do what is needed.
Many of the presentations also stated there was no guarantee that Infraco would be able to substantially reduce the cost of telecoms, and that proposed changes could be unconstitutional and, finally, that there were no "good grounds for the change".
The amendment to the Act, as proposed by the Department of Communications, although aimed specifically at licensing Infraco, does not mention the new state-owned-enterprise by name. Because of this, many of the presenters felt it opened the door for unfettered state intervention and would introduce a parallel licensing process - one for the state and the other for the private sector.
The companies also voiced their concern that Infraco, while supposedly only a broadband network supplier, is already considering supplying services and that it would then start competing unfairly with the private sector.
Companies that opposed the amendment included Vodacom, Cell C, MTN, Telkom, Internet Solutions, MIH and the National Association of Broadcasters. The Internet Society SA chapter was the only non-governmental organisation present.
National signal distributor Sentech also used the opportunity to again raise the issue that Infraco is receiving a better deal under the Public Finance Management Act.
"Sentech is still hindered by being constrained in finding its own financing, while Infraco already will have the leeway to raise financing as it sees fit," Sentech said in its presentation.
Smile Communications, one of the country`s smaller telecoms companies, said that in order to meet government`s requirement to reduce the cost of telecommunications, the change in legislation should be objective and not entity-driven.
"We have good intentions to reduce the cost of telecommunications to the poor, but for us to get a licence is almost impossible," said Smile Communications regulatory spokesperson Lee-Ann Cassie.
Speaking on behalf of the Internet Service Providers Association of SA, Mike Silber said there were already a number of state-owned enterprises in the ICT space and none had so far had any impact on the reduction of prices.
Alan Levin from Internet Society SA pointed out that while everyone agreed with the objectives of the amendment - to bring down the cost of telecoms - there had been a demonstrable failure between archiving these objectives and the means to do so.
The Portfolio Committee on Communications will debate the amendments to the Act tomorrow.
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