South Africa’s government has allocated an additional Rand 300 million (about €17.5 million) in its annual budget for regulator ICASA for 2022-2023. The cash means an increase in ICASA’s budget of more than 50 per cent and comes ahead of its March planned spectrum auction.

“[The] additional funding of R300-million in 2022/2023 is earmarked for strengthening regulatory capacity and licensing spectrum […] specifically wireless broadband services,” South Africa’s treasury said in its statement.

However, the state-owned transmission company Sentech has its budget trimmed. Sentech will no longer receive any funding from the government for its existing “dual illumination” of both analogue and digital terrestrial television signals, with government promising the migration to digital TV will be concluded this year. All analogue TV transmitters are expected to have been shut down by the end of 2021/2022.

The government’s national treasury said the department of communications & digital technologies will focus mainly on implementing digital migration and spectrum licensing in the medium term.

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Categories: Articles, Funding, Spectrum

Tags: icasa, south africa, spectrum