Weeks after agreeing to pay R2.1bn to buy radio frequency spectrum in an auction, Telkom is pressing ahead with a court application to declare the process illegal.

Telkom, whose reinvention to become a modern telecom operator has propelled it past Cell C as SA’s third-largest mobile operator, has long been opposed to the allocation of the government-controlled airwaves on grounds that the process is in conflict with a clause in the country’s ICT policy that aims to break the stranglehold of MTN and Vodacom on the mobile phone market...