Mobility 2006: Paris Mashile, Complexities of regulating costs for telecommunications in South Africa

The chairperson of ICASA, Mr. Paris Mashile, addressed the opening session of the Mobility 2006 conference. Despite being accused a “loser” for delaying the introduction of mobile number portability by the current edition of Financial Mail today. His address was largely to justify state-heavy regulation within the mobile industry in favour of protecting the consumers. A point was put forward that we should all remember that ‘consumers are key constituencies”. South Africa remains a “developmental state” by its economic performance, meaning that the government is obliged to play a greater role through regulation for fairer competition in the marketplace. The principal aim is to prevent large corporations from dominating the market and, therefore, facilitate the socio-economic objective of regulation.

A promise was made that ICASA will ensure that the regulation must “at all times remain consistent with the accepted regulatory principles of efficiency, objectivity, Professionalism, transparency and independence”. However, the latter seems to be highly debatable as to the extent of ICASA’s independence. Imagine a society without regulation at all. What will happen to ‘disparate people’? Will we then be “inviting socio-political revolution”? Markets can not be self-regulatory at all. The point is that mobile technologies are playing a crucial role in social integration and cultural renaissance; their usage has a direct bearing on South Africa’s global competitiveness. Therefore, state regulation is justified by that willingness to play a balancing role. With Neotel joining the party, competition is highly expected. A major concern remains whether to remove ‘permanent billing’ and place it in per-second billing across all networks.