HILARY GUSH, Johannesburg | Friday
THE rocky road to competition in the South African telecoms market passes another milestone on Friday when industry players submit comments on new draft regulations setting out the liberalised landscape.
Under the new rules, a second fixed-line phone network will go into operation this year, ending the monopoly of state-run Telkom, and the government will list shares in Telkom by March in its biggest privatisation yet.
Potential investors in Telkom are keen to see what kind of competition Telkom will face, while operators interested in investing in a rival to Telkom also want the finer points of the likely market.
Friday’s submissions are the latest in South Africa’s tortuous trek to telecoms liberalisation. Last year government policy went through a series of U-turns, as industry players fought over whether to allow one or two new Telkom rivals.
The new policy was finally passed on the last day of the 2001 parliamentary session.
Written submissions have to be made by 1100 GMT. Industry regulator ICASA will then call for oral submissions and make any alterations to the regulations, which it will either put back for public debate or send to the minister for approval.
WHAT TELKOM WANTS
Telkom is mainly concerned about who bears the cost of rolling out systems to allow customers to pre-select their carriers a requirement of the new telecoms policy passed late last year.
It reckons the cost could run to several hundreds of millions of rand.
Carrier pre-selection, which must be in place by December 31, 2003, allows a customer of one network to choose another operator for long-distance and international calls, either by dialling a code ahead of the number, or by setting the second operator as a default provider of those services.
Telkom’s regulatory affairs executive, Gabriele Celli, said pre-selection costs where key.
”It’s extremely difficult to understand who pays for implementing all the necessary facilities and where the costs are going to be recovered,” he told Reuters in an interview.
”It may end up that it is customers who have to cross-subsidise carrier pre-selection.”
Telkom does not want to provide blanket pre-selection. ”We will do it where there is a proven demand,” said Celli. ”We suggest a flat surcharge on all consumers be levied. We’re talking about a fraction of a cent per call.”
Esi-Tel, the telecoms arm of government energy utility Eskom , said it is also concerned about who carries the cost of pre-selection. Thirty percent of the new licence has been set aside for Esi-Tel and for Transtel, the telecoms arm of state transport utility Transnet.
FACILITIES LEASING
Telkom is also worried about draft guidelines on leasing its infrastructure to a new operator, another obligation of telecoms policy albeit only for two years.
It says the draft supplementary facilities leasing guidelines should be replaced.
But while Telkom is pleased the regulator is including the cost of capital in working out lease pricing, Transtel is not happy.
Telkom also questions why state signal distributor Sentech, which will get an international ”carrier of carriers” licence and a broadband permit, is even mentioned in the draft.
It is concerned that the facilities leasing guidelines apply to state signal broadcaster Sentech, which is being given a so-called international ”carrier of carriers” licence.
Telkom is worried Sentech, whose final licence conditions are not yet out, could become a third full-service operator.
Celli says ICASA should rather create a network-leasing regulation which applies only to Telkom and the second operator. – Reuters