TELECOMS BACKLOG
Data prices ‘50% lower if state sells spectrum’
The move from analogue to digital television services will free up highly coveted bands of radio frequencies for telecommunications firms
Data prices could more than halve if the government finally gets around allocating additional spectrum, or radio frequencies, to network operators, says Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub. This comes as the Competition Commission holds public hearings as part of its inquiry into the country’s data costs, which are perceived to be abnormally high. The move from analogue to digital television services — the international deadline was initially set for June 2015, indicating how SA is falling ever further behind the rest of the world — will free up highly coveted bands of radio frequencies for telecommunications firms. Speaking at the MyBroadband conference in Midrand on Thursday, Joosub said the lack of spectrum meant network operators had been incurring additional costs as they had to build more cell towers to compensate for the lack of spectrum. However, he warned that network operators would probably not have more spectrum for at least another year due to SA’s painfully slow migration to di...
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