South Africa’s communications regulator ICASA has approved six bidders for next month’s capacity auction. They are Vodacom, MTN, Telkom, Cell C, Liquid Intelligent Technologies and Rain. The invitations to apply and to submit for the auction was issued back in December 2021 with a requirement to firm up their applications by January 31st. However, telco […]
Vodacom is the mobile leader in South Africa having grown its market (y-o-y) from 44.3 million active subscribers to 45.77 million as at December 31st 2021. This represent a 42 per cent market share. Second place is occupied by MTN which had (as at September 30th 2021) 33.51 million subs (and a 31 per cent […]
South Africa’s Telkom, in its High Court action, has proposed withdrawing its objections to the upcoming proposed spectrum auction. But this might not mean a speedy end to its objections. Local reports say that lawyers for Telkom, in a letter to the Court, appear to want instead to see the various parties have a full […]
South Africa’s telecoms regulator ICASA has made a number of provisional cellular spectrum awards. The licences are only good for seven months (starting on December 1st) and reflect the challenges created by the pandemic and the recommendation that people work from home. The provisional licences are until June 30th 2022, or three months after the […]
South Africa’s communications regulator ICASA was due to face a slew of court actions starting November 15th over spectrum allocations. The actions were cancelled. The legal actions had started and included Telkom, Rain, Vodacom and MTN. The softening comes about because ICASA has now licensed “provisional” spectrum in place of temporary allocations which have been […]
South African cellular operator Vodacom has joined telco Telkom in confronting regulator ICASA over its decision to take back “temporary” spectrum. It means that South Africa’s three largest telcos (including MTN) are all now pursuing ICASA through the Pretoria High Court and arguing that ICASA’s timing is not right. The spectrum was made available in […]
Vodacom is part of a consortium that has won an operating licence for a cellular service in Ethiopia. The consortium is made up of acknowledged experts in the supply and operation of a telephone service and beat another applicant (MTN Grp) which was not successful. The Global Partnership consortium comprises includes Safaricom (in which Vodacom […]
South Africa’s president Cyril Ramaphosa has heavily criticised local telcos for mounting a series of legal objections to the nation’s plan to issue more broadband spectrum. MTN Group, which holds the second most subscribers in the country, and Telkom have both appealed to courts about how the regulator is arranging the auction, which was announced […]
AST & Science has won a contract from Vodacom, the South African subsidiary of Vodafone, to supply connectivity to a space-based cellular broadband network capable of linking standard mobile phones. AST also announced that it would become a publicly-traded business in Q1 2021 and rename itself AST SpaceMobile. The company is in the process of […]
South Africa’s much-delayed spectrum auction will see some progress by the end of September when regulator ICASA will issue two invitations to apply for interested parties. ICASA says the spectrum will then be issued at the end of the regulator’s financial year (March 2021) which is a further 3 months later than the promised December […]