Altech vs ICASA and 28 Others: The Minister Appeals

ICASA did not appeal the judgement; and in my interactions with ICASA, I have learnt that many inside ICASA are happy that they did not appeal the judgement. Managed liberalisation or not; the over all feeling on the matter was that opening up the market was the way to go.

But the minister of communications has decided to muddy the waters once again - and apparently it is for our collective good. In her infinite wisdom, the minister (although there are claims it is more the DG and not the minister herself) has decided to appeal the judgement. And most striking argument that the minister proposes is the following:

If VANS licensees are allowed to obtain Individual-ECNS licenses under license conversion, government’s managed liberalisation policy will be seriously undermined to the detriment of the Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) industry.

I can already see two major arguments against this statement. First, the minister did not make this argument in the case itself. While there was an argument about managed liberalisation being affected; the argument was not extended to the effect it will have on the broader industry - just to Neotel.

But it is last part that is quite funny - that giving VANS i-ECNS licenses will be to the detriment of the ICT industry. The ICT industry is composed of three types of companies: VANS (communications), software development and standard hardware/software service and support. There are 600 VANS licensees - and they all benefit from having i-ECNS licenses. So presumably; the other components will be affected by VANS licensees having iECNS licenses.

The question is - how exactly will this affect the ICT industry negatively? The minister's arguments in the appeal, will be, if nothing else - hilarious.