The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) has postponed the publication of the draft local loop unbundling (LLU) regulations, saying it will inform stakeholders about the future publication of the regulations in the next week.

The regulator had previously expected to publish the draft regulations for public comment on July 16, but said on Wednesday that the drafting of the regulations was taking longer than expected.

The regulations governing LLU, which would give Telkom’s rivals access to its ‘last mile’ of copper-cable infrastructure at a wholesale price, have been delayed several times. The regulations were initially scheduled to have been finalised by November 2011.

Meanwhile, Icasa also announced that it has granted an extension to licensees to provide input on the call termination market review, to August 2, from the previous deadline of July 26.

Licensees wanting to give input on the broadband value chain study were also granted an extension to July 29 to do so, from the previous deadline of July 15.

The call termination market review and the broadband value chain study formed part of the regulator’s cost to communicate programme, launched in June, to address the concerns of various stakeholders about the high cost of communication in South Africa.

Icasa indicated that it had, since the launch of the programme, received a number of requests for extensions.

Nevertheless, the regulator stated that it did not, at this stage, foresee any changes in the final deliverable timelines of the two projects.

The call termination market review was aimed at determining the viability of further reducing mobile termination rates (MTRs) from the current 40c a minute to between 15c and 25c a minute.

In June, Icasa indicated that it planned to have the final call termination regulations, which would set out a new glide path for further MTR reductions, concluded by October 25.

Further, the broadband value chain study, which would evaluate all the cost elements, identify the significant market power and consider potential facilities and wholesale services, would allow the authority to effectively regulate broadband prices where necessary. Final regulations were expected to be finalised by April 2014.