South Africa’s communications minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni has presented filings to the country’s High Court in Pretoria saying that the government will firmly oppose telco Telkom in its move to delay the planned spectrum auction.

The move is dramatic given that the government holds more than 40 per cent of Telkom’s equity which seemingly has little impact on decision-making at Telkom.

Telkom is mounting its action on the basis of several key arguments, not least that the much-promised 700MHz and 800MHz spectrum bring auctioned is not – and will not – be available for some time.

Meanwhile, Ntshavheni has also indicated that it might be time to reach an out-of-court settlement to defuse the situation.

Regulator ICASA also pitched in last week with another strongly worded statement, saying: “Telkom appears hellbent on stalling the authority’s every effort to licence the high-demand spectrum that the sector, country and our economy so badly needs”.

Other posts by :

1. Bank: AST SpaceMobile will orbit 356 satellites by 2030
2. SpaceX launches 600th rocket
3. Starlink: 10m customers and counting
4. SES predicts end of ‘big’ Geo satellites
5. Amazon Leo gets approval for 4,504 extra satellites
6. SpaceX gets a portion of India
7. TerreStar wants to build LEO network
8. Musk: “No Starlink phone”
9. Russia accused of eavesdropping on satellites

Categories: Articles, Policy, Regulation, Spectrum

Tags: icasa, south africa, spectrum, Telkom