Yet the rationale for the name change from the Department of Telecommunications, Posts and Broadcasting more than a decade ago in preparation for the 21st century has intensified. In fact, since then, the digitalisation and convergence of infrastructure, services, applications and content, and their governance, have increased the complexity and linkages between historically distinct broadcasting and telecommunications platforms. This has led to the modern communications system to be referred to as an information and communications technology or internet ecosystem — the overall health of the system being dependent on the wellbeing of various integrated components.
It is in this global context that the National Development Plan envisaged the realisation of the positive relationship between broadband penetration, and economic growth and job creation. This vision informed the national broadband policy, SA Connect, which, with its strong emphasis on demand stimulation, extends far beyond infrastructure extension for its success.
The splitting of the department flies in the face of global regulatory and technological trends, and has set back the implementation of these plans considerably, seriously jeopardising the realisation of the ambitious broadband targets set by the government only six months ago.
What prompted this aberrant action? How do you separate the content that is the primary stimulant of demand for broadband from network extension or public Wi-Fi strategies aimed at providing e-government services by piggybacking on high-demand social networking apps? How do you deconstruct the net neutrality framework required to regulate competition effectively in a sector in which telecoms companies are able to stream content online that is being so fiercely protected by broadcasters or, more problematically perhaps, not fulfilling quotas for public interest content that broadcasters are required to? How do you deal with concentration of ownership between vertically integrated carriers and content providers?
The truth is that you cannot separate these issues. This is why Telecommunications and Postal Services Minister Siyabonga Cwele found himself raising the issue of premium content rights in his budget vote and indicated his intention to direct the Independent Communications Authority of SA (Icasa) to attend to this. But in terms of the proclamation gazetted on July 15, which transfers the administrative power and functions entrusted by legislation to certain Cabinet members in terms of section 97 of the constitution, is this the right ministry to do so? Should that not be the communications minister? While it was hoped that this proclamation assigning legal powers would resolve the confusion, it serves instead to demonstrate how unworkable this retrogressive separation actually is.
Several of the important measures announced by Cwele in his budget vote highlight the contradictions that emerge when trying to hold the lines of accountability implied by the proclamation to the actions he has proposed.
How does one separate the content from infrastructure issues on, for example, the (unnecessarily) vexed issue of migration from analogue to digital broadcasting — the success of which depends less on the hard, technical issues of spectrum and decoders than the softer issues such as the insatiable demand for content that has to be met in a multichannel environment, which ultimately determines the viability of channels and the vibrancy of the sector?
Cwele declared that by the end of last month, the final broadcasting digital migration policy would be gazetted and, within three months, the start date for the "digital switch-on" would be designated. This would facilitate the release of spectrum, increasing the number of TV channels; but, also important, it would release spectrum for broadband services in time.
The primary institutions involved in this process are the national signal distribution company, Sentech, and Icasa. Sentech, as an infrastructure provider, presumably has now been allocated to the Department of Telecommunications and Postal Services, while Icasa falls under the Department of Communications, as presumably does the broadcast industry it regulates. So would all the directives intended for the regulator have to be directed through the Department of Communications?
Another critical issue raised by Cwele is the positive effect that shared infrastructure deployment could have on costs and, consequently, end-user prices. To address this, he indicated his intention to direct Icasa "to look into how public networks can be offered on a common carrier basis so as to facilitate cost savings and the entry of many players and the enhancement of competition".
But again, can he do this? Legal uncertainty seems to be just the opening our litigious media and telecoms companies would look for to challenge policy and regulatory determinations they don’t like. Our history — on the allocation of high-demand spectrum, for example, though digital migration would be an obvious other — shows that the industry big boys are willing to hold the threat of legal action over the heads of the regulator or play the minister off against the regulator, for short-term gains, even if the delays cost them and SA dearly in the long term.
The fundamental problem for Cwele is that the proclamation gives him powers to administer the Electronic Communications Act but not the Icasa Act, which governs the former’s primary implementing agency. But giving him power to administer Icasa will leave the communications minister, arguably not on the same scale, with the same problem. Would it be feasible for both ministers to direct Icasa on designated issues in the law? Unravelling that will take time. Is the sector on hold until then? Further, doing so takes us back to the question of the need for (and cost of) two ministries in the first place.
Unfortunately, even if the legal issues could be resolved, this is not just a matter of dealing with the practicalities of legally decoupling the departments. Of far greater concern is the lack of foresight or, worse still if it is the case, disregard for the negative effect this will have on realising the national objectives of driving broadband in the interests of social and economic inclusion.
Avoiding the loss of momentum on a number of critical policy and regulatory interventions that appeared finally to be back on track after the litany of ministers deployed in the communications department in the previous administration would have been reason alone for not unravelling the legal framework and institutional arrangements for the sector, imperfect as they may have been.
As with vitally conjoined twins, the radical surgery to separate them may result in damage to one or be fatal for both. Information and communications technologies are the nervous system of a modern economy. Let us reassess the risks of separation. If they are too high, unlike life-threatening surgery once undertaken, the decision can be reversed.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Alison Gillwald
Quelle/Source: Business Day live, 06.08.2014
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