South Africa’s telecommunications regulator has been roundly criticised by stakeholders for backpedalling on regulations aimed at bringing exorbitant ADSL pricing in line.
The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa’s (Icasa) ADSL regulations released last week have been described as “watered down” and “disappointing” by stakeholders.
Internet Service Providers’ Association (Ispa) spokesperson Gregg Massel said the regulator had “neatly sidestepped” the key issues of limited bandwidth capacity and lack of affordability.
“While greater transparency is to be encouraged, one has the feeling that Icasa is more concerned with placing labels on broadband services than doing anything about the actual cost of these services,” said Massel.
The disappointment from stakeholders is in stark contrast to the reaction to the original draft regulations, which were interpreted as a meaningful attempt by the regulator to fix South Africa’s ADSL problems.
On the face of it the draft regulations attempted to address the capping of bandwidth usage and the billing structure utilised by Telkom, which charged consumers once for fixed-line home phone rental and again for an ADSL service, even though they were both delivered on the same copper line.
Rudolph Meyer from consumer activism website MyADSL said it was disappointing that the issues of pricing and usage limits had not been addressed by the regulator, adding that current ADSL offerings would not change much as a result of the new regulations.
BMI-TechKnowledge’s telecoms analyst Richard Hurst said that Icasa had taken a reverse stance to the one contained in the original draft regulations, and that this would maintain the status quo of excessively priced ADSL offerings.
“The overall impression one gets from the regulations is that they are a watered-down version of what the industry was anticipating,” said Hurst. “The new regulations will not fundamentally alter the ADSL status quo.”
However, Icasa’s chairperson Paris Mashile argued that the regulator has not done an about-face and that there is little difference between the draft regulations and those released last week.
Mashile insisted that the regulator had not backpedalled in his response to questions regarding the changes to the regulations governing ADSL pricing.
“There is no material difference between the two provisions but a matter of semantics or choice of words, otherwise the principle is the same. It is, therefore, not correct or accurate to aver that the provisions maintain the status quo,” said Mashile.
However, it is the ambiguous nature of the language used for the new regulations on price that may allow ADSL service providers to continue to maintain their exorbitant rates.
Mashile insisted that the changes to the regulations regarding usage capping were altered after it came to light that the ISPs, and not Telkom, were capping usage.
There was some good news in the regulations for consumers. Operators have 30 days from the receipt of an application for an ADSL service to deliver, although stakeholders have questioned Telkom’s ability to comply and the regulator would not disclose what punitive measures it had at its disposal in the case of non-compliance.
ADSL consumers will also be glad to hear that local bandwidth will no longer be capped, which will have positive spin-offs for the production of local online content.