The news:
- The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has amended the Electronic Communications Act to prevent market power abuse in the mobile retail sector.
- The new development mandates mobile network operators (MNOs) with significant market power (SMP), such as MTN and Vodacom, to provide the regulator with all confidential accounts, records, and other relevant documents related to their operations.
- ICASA released a notice in a government gazette detailing the latest changes on Friday, 5 July 2024, following written submission from MTN, Vodacom, Telkom, Cell C, and the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA).
“These regulations are called the Mobile Broadband Services Amendment Regulations 2024 and will come into force upon publication in the Government Gazette,” the authority stated.
Along with providing the information to ICASA, the initial regulations, first published on March 31, 2022, required operators with SMP to compulsorily publish reports on retail prices for end-users, data revenue, retail tariffs, and wholesale prices for mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) and access point names (APNs) on their websites, regardless of confidentiality.
However, one of the new amendments to the regulations effectively removes this requirement, which means mobile operators with SMP no longer have to publish confidential information on their websites.
That said, the mobile operators with SMP still have to publish non-confidential reports publicly while sharing the confidential ones with the authority quarterly.
Although MTN, Telkom, Vodacom, and the ISPA supported the removal, ICASA noted that Cell C disagreed.
Despite the division, ICASA exercised its regulatory powers to eliminate the regulation. It said, “The Authority reiterates its position to delete regulation 7(e), given that it did not find a licensee with significant market power in the APN and MVNO service markets.”
Another change proposed included the removal of clauses 7(f) and 7(g), related to regulating wholesale prices to MVNOs and APNs.
These clauses are quoted below:
“Clause 7(f) — Furthermore, if any category of retail price is below any wholesale price the operator with SMP is required to submit an explanation for the differential and fully auditable evidence to the Authority…
“Clause 7(g) — The Authority will monitor retail prices and wholesale prices, and in particular monitor for margin squeeze…”MTN and Vodacom backed the proposal to remove these clauses, however, Cell C, ISPA, and Telkom, which gave different reasons, did not support the proposal. ICASA retained regulation 7(f) and deleted section 7(g).
