ANALYSIS | ICASA wants to give cellphone data bundles a six-month lifespam

More than 46% of South Africans are offline today. They do not use the internet. While there are many barriers that limit Internet use and adoption in the country, the affordability of data makes things worse. In 2019, the Competition Commission found that South Africa's mobile data prices were higher than other countries worldwide.

The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) says that over 2bn people globally live in a country where just 1GB of mobile data is unaffordable. In South Africa, it found “a seemingly affordable mobile internet connection actually costs the majority of South Africans anywhere between 6-19% of their income”. 

Public campaigns in South Africa often feature the hashtag suffix #…MustFall, with other recent examples including #RhodesMustFall, to encourage the decolonisation of curriculums, and #FeesMustFall, to advocate for reduced university fees. In 2016, a popular social media campaign #DataMustFall was successful in gaining attention from Policymakers and regulators.

In his first State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised to reduce mobile data prices, explaining that wherever he had travelled in the country, people had ‘continuously raised the issue of the excessively high data costs’. In the same year in February, finance minister Tito Mboweni argued for cheaper prices during his budget speech and yelled out “#DataPricesMustFall”.

However, the cellular networks argue that part of the reason for their prices is the lack of spectrum allocation, which is running years late in South Africa’s case.

Following this, Ramaphosa directed communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams to issue a policy directive to the Independent Communications Regulator of South Africa (Icasa) within a month to address the spectrum licensing process.

“The licensing of spectrum is one of the major reforms that we are implementing to modernise and transform key network industries such as energy, telecommunications, transport and water provision.”

“The licensing of this new spectrum will be accompanied by agreed social obligations to connect public schools, health facilities and police stations over the next three years,” he continued.

“Cheaper data means that young people will have greater access to digital platforms to seek job opportunities online. Students will be able to access information and educational materials. Entrepreneurs will be able to start businesses and reach new markets,” he said.

Ramaphosa also acknowledged that South Africa’s licensing of additional spectrum to mobile operators was delayed for nearly two decades due to state failures.

"The auction of spectrum is an important achievement,” Ramaphosa said.

Last week, The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) concluded its high-demand spectrum auction. Well done. Having been awarded the spectrum that the mobile networks have been begging for for years, it’s going to be hard for them to claim they can't provide cheap data to South Africans. 

I read Toby ShapShak's daily maverick opinion piece where he reports that ICASA wants to amend Regulation 8B of the End-User and Subscriber Service Charter Amendment Regulations of 2018 to read: “Unused data and data services obtained through either prepaid or post-paid channels shall not expire before expiry of a period of 6 months, except for promotional packages.” Six months; yes that's correct.

Understandably, data is a virtual thing. It therefore makes no sense why it should have a sell-by date. Unlike an apple that really will go off if you don’t eat it within a week, Data can't go off. It can't expire. The only reason why we for many years lived in a world of this artificial expiration date is because it makes more money.

Since the 1990s when the mobile industry was launched, cellular telephony has been a blessing to us consumers who enjoy being able to make or take a call anywhere, anytime. But it came at a cost and South Africa’s prices have consistently been higher than those in the rest of Africa.

We must not feel sorry for cellular operators or even try to listen to them against the public will. They have enjoyed nearly three decades of unnecessarily expensive voice calls, followed by years of unnecessarily high data costs. For once, everyone in South Africa must be united for #DataMustntExpire.

For South African consumers this is a happy day – a sign that the profligate profiteering of the past few decades is passing, and the consumer is increasingly getting cheaper and better telecoms.

If you pay for something that doesn’t expire, it’s only right that you can carry on using it without some artificial sell-by date driven by a profit motive instead of a customer-value offering.

Toby ShapShak

Icasa said affected parties must provide submissions in writing on the proposed regulations by no later than 4pm on 18 May.















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Credit:
Toby ShapShak "Icasa takes a stand and gives cellphone data bundles a six-month lifespan" April 2022. Daily Maverick

Toby ShapShak "#DataMustFall Says South Africa's President Ahead Of New Spectrum Policy" June 2019. Forbes