Ferradaz said this in his interview on the Business Hour, in which he revealed that telecommunications companies have been pleading with government to come to the table regarding spectrum allocation for more than ten years, a clear indicator that the issue over high data costs isn’t one that began recently. He reveals the country’s telecommunications companies “refarmed spectrum” over the years to continue connecting South Africans to the internet, despite the fact that the situation – from the state’s side – was not being well managed.

Spectrum refers to the radio frequencies used for communication over airwaves by radio, television and the mobile telephone industry and the allocation process is expected to help lower the country’s steep data prices. Ferradaz says with the Covid-19 pandemic and remote working/online learning now at play, the situation has gotten to a point where the country needs it badly.

Despite some attempts by the government to get the ball rolling, in early March the process was halted by the North Gauteng High Court due to rising contentions between the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa and varied operators - MTN, Telkom and broadcaster Etv – in particular, over the allocation process. This has led to the delay of the auction of spectrum.

According to Tech Central, Telkom was the first to object to the process in late 2020, arguing that Icasa issued “Invitations To Apply” knowing that the 700MHz and 800MHz bands which are the “digital dividend bands used by analogue television broadcasters – were not yet available for use by telecoms operators”. Telkom maintained that this prejudiced them in the process.

MTN later launched its own legal action maintaining the Invitation To Appy had created a scheme which prejudiced MTN and Vodacom.

Ferradaz also makes an argument for opening up the telecoms market to more competitors, to ensure that costs are lowered and the demand the country is seeing for data to be met.