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The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) on Monday called for comment on a new roadmap aimed to promote investments, enable a “vibrant and competitive” telecommunications industry and ensure universal broadband access.
Stakeholders would have until October 7 to provide input into the draft International Mobile Telephony (IMT) roadmap, which built on the Frequency Migration Plan published in April 2013, and would see the deployment of various bands of radio frequency spectrum for IMT.
The consultation document aimed to share findings and draft proposals, as South Africa’s imminent turn-off of analogue frequency mid-2015, through digital migration, released much-coveted spectrum required for the country’s broadband ambitions.
“To support these targets, more spectrum will be needed to ensure widespread coverage in terms of area and adequate capacity of bandwidth,” the document highlighted.
Icasa revealed that a key driver for the deployment of IMT bands would be the need to ensure that mobile broadband played “its role” in meeting the aims of the South Africa Connect national broadband plan.
“A key part of the document concerns the deployment of the 700 MHz and 800 MHz digital dividend bands, and potentially the 450 to 470 MHz band, to provide universal service,” the document outlined, adding that feasibility studies had been undertaken for the 450 to 470 MHz band and the 880 to 960 MHz band.
The roadmap outlined options and recommendations for the deployment of bands designated for IMT use, potential migration scenarios and timelines, as well as assignments with minimum requirements for coverage and capacity obligations for existing and new bands.
While additional capacity could be assigned for IMT in the short term, there was still a need to use existing spectrum more efficiently to enable operators to densify their networks, with the growing demand for mobile broadband pushing the need for more mobile broadband bandwidth capacity.
“The roadmap involved the migration of a number of current licensees out of bands identified for IMT services. For bands where costs and benefits of the migration were not straightforward, the authority conducted further feasibility studies to determine the appropriateness of the migration,” Icasa said.