ICASA boss needs to step down

ADSL South Africa (Broadband South Africa), 1 October 2006

ICASA chairman Paris Mashile should do the honourable thing and step down especially after sharing his opinion in regards to ADSL pricing.

It has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that ADSL prices in South Africa are way out of line in comparison to ADSL pricing elsewhere. This makes Paris Mashile’s statement that there’s not enough proof that ADSL prices are too high, to say the least, “retarded”. In fact, he has now proven beyond reasonable doubt that he's not the ICASA boss South Africa needs. Maybe the ICASA boss Telkom needs but not the one South Africa needs.

Why the sudden turn around? He affirmed time and time again earlier this year the necessity to reduce the costs of telecommunications in South Africa as quickly as possible. Why go into the trouble of even holding public hearings into ADSL pricing if prices are not too high? They must really think we’re a bunch of fools to think they can fool us with such sophistry.

ICASA’s recent decision to allow only fixed-line operators access to the 3.5GHz frequency spectrum is also evident of its unhealthy tendency to play into Telkom’s hands. This decision effectively forced Cell C to discontinue its trials of the wireless broadband technology WiMax. In fact, this decision halted the progress of healthy competition that’s needed to bring prices down. ICASA is nothing more than a shameless bully at this stage.

One can only speculate about what’s really going on behind the scenes at ICASA. Mashile needs to step down in order to give someone decent a chance to step in and do what’s needed to turn the ship away from the rocks.