A physique representing South Africa’s largest telecommunications operators has warned that Icasa’s proposed nationwide infrastructure database might create nationwide safety dangers and has accused the ICT sector regulator of failing to sort out the municipal wayleave bottleneck that has lengthy throttled broadband roll-out.
In preliminary suggestions to TechCentral on the draft fast deployment laws gazetted on Friday, the Affiliation of Comms & Know-how (ACT), which represents the nation’s six greatest telecoms operators, stated the centralisation of detailed community infrastructure knowledge might create nationwide safety dangers if not adequately safeguarded.
ACT CEO Nomvuyiso Batyi stated the requirement to submit detailed knowledge on community areas, capability and deliberate investments raised severe issues concerning the safety of commercially delicate info, and that better readability was wanted on who would have entry to the info, the extent of element to be shared and the safeguards in opposition to misuse or unauthorised disclosure.
The draft laws, which give impact to authorities’s 2023 nationwide fast deployment coverage, require each licensed community operator to submit geo-referenced knowledge on fibre routes, ducts, poles, manholes, towers and base stations to Icasa on a bi-annual foundation. Operators should additionally disclose service availability on the deal with degree and forward-looking info on deliberate roll-outs, together with goal areas, timelines and applied sciences.
Failure to adjust to the GIS obligations carries a effective of as much as R1-million.
Constant by-laws
ACT is worried that the draft laws go away the core downside – fragmented and unpredictable municipal approval processes – largely unaddressed. The foyer group stated the draft doesn’t resolve the traditionally constrained community roll-out surroundings, together with fragmented municipal approval methods, variable and typically opaque payment buildings, and lengthy, unpredictable approval durations that undermine funding planning.
Icasa’s draft doesn’t impose binding turnaround occasions on municipalities for processing wayleave functions. Nor does it introduce a deemed-approval mechanism in instances of municipal delay – each persistent business asks that the fast deployment coverage was anticipated to handle.
Learn: Icasa strikes to mandate nationwide infrastructure database
ACT desires Icasa to work with the division of communications & digital applied sciences, the division of cooperative governance & conventional affairs and the South African Native Authorities Affiliation to implement constant municipal wayleave by-laws. It’s also calling for a “de facto single-window” approval course of to chop via pink tape.
“The most important danger is that the method turns into extra advanced quite than sooner,” Batyi stated.
ACT has raised three additional structural issues. The proposed penalties – notably the R1-million GIS effective – are probably disproportionate given the complexity of the necessities, and at a degree that will deter funding quite than encourage compliance, it stated.
The six-month implementation window for the GIS obligations has additionally been flagged as inadequate for licensees to develop the required methods and processes, with smaller operators prone to really feel the pressure most acutely.
The foyer group additionally desires the laws formally to recognise tower corporations and passive infrastructure suppliers, and to align with the amenities leasing and licensing frameworks. Speedy deployment depends on amenities leasing and key stakeholders like tower corporations, ACT stated, and any lasting framework should prolong past Icasa’s conventional scope.
Complete submission
A requirement within the draft laws that operators disclose forward-looking roll-out plans – together with designated areas, projected begin and completion dates and the particular applied sciences to be deployed – appears to be like prone to be one of the crucial commercially contested parts of the draft, with operators involved that opponents would acquire visibility into one another’s funding methods.
ACT stated its preliminary response can be adopted by a complete submission as soon as it had consulted additional with its members. Public feedback on the draft laws shut in late Could. — (c) 2026 NewsCentral Media
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