ISPA Echoes Calls for Regulatory Support for MVNOs

3 September 2024

ISPA, South Africa’s official internet Industry Representative Body (IRB), welcomes recent calls for an appropriate, light-touch regulatory regime specifically tailored to support the growing number of Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) introducing competition into the local mobile data market.

The MVNO sector has grown significantly with many familiar South African brands launching their own mobile offerings. There are now around 18 active MVNOs in South Africa, competing aggressively in the mobile data space and reducing the cost of mobile data for subscribers who have more choice than ever before.

The majority of these are on the Cell C platform – launched in 2006 – but MTN has entered the MVNO market aggressively over the past two years. Vodacom and Telkom – obliged by their latest spectrum licences to also offer access to their networks for MVNOs – should enter the market soon.

ICASA deserves congratulations for including the obligation to provide access to MVNOs in the licences issued after the successful March 2022 spectrum auction. In ISPA’s view this will prove to be one of the most important regulatory interventions for reducing the cost to communicate.

However, Africa Analysis recently noted that there is a comparatively high failure rate for local MVNOs – approximately 16 of 34 launched have not survived – attributing this in part to a lack of regulatory support.

It is clear that there needs to be more than a bare obligation in a licence to ensure that this spark of competition is nourished.

This has been recognised by the Competition Commission and the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT), which are proposing to include a new set of provisions to support MVNOs in upcoming amendments to the Electronic Communications Act (ECA).

The finalisation of a legislative framework for MVNOs will be contentious. ISPA has already made submissions to the DCDT calling for more detailed provisions in the Electronic Communications Amendment Bill 2023 to support different forms of MVNOs and their ability to offer the widest range of services to South Africans.

“A number of local MVNOs are already ISPA members – MVNOs are in reality a form of ISP – and looking to us to provide regulatory support in a local market where there is a commercial understanding of MVNOs, but no agreed regulatory definition,” says Sasha Booth-Beharilal, ISPA chair.

ISPA has two decades of experience in helping to reduce the cost to communicate in fixed data markets, and is looking to apply lessons learnt to the mobile data market on which the majority of South Africans rely for connectivity.

ISPA remains one of the country’s biggest representative bodies, made up of both Electronic Communications Service (ECS) and Electronic Communications Networks Service (ECNS) licensees.

Possibly one of the biggest benefits of ISPA membership, across all categories, relates to the Association’s Take-Down Notice (TDN) procedure. This is one of the many services offered to all ISPA members and protects them from liability for content that is hosted on, or transited through, their networks. In order to qualify for this liability protection, ISPA members must have a clear and solid process in place for handling take-down notifications.