ECCOM RENEWS MTN LICENCE FOR 10YRS

MBABANE – Swazi MTN’s licence has been renewed for a period of 10 years. The Eswatini Communications Commission (ECCOM) has announced that the licence has been renewed for a period of 10 years from November 17, 2018 to November 16, 2028 in accordance with the Electronic Communications (Licencing) Regulations of 2016.

“The terms and conditions of the licence will be in accordance with the prevailing licensing framework, as may be amended from time to time,” said Chief Executive Officer Mvilawemphi Dlamini.
Dlamini explained that additional new terms would be included in the new licences to address any non-compliance issues identified during the evaluation process.

Renewal

The CEO narrated that Swazi MTN applied for the renewal of Electronic Communication Service Licence (ECS) and Electronic Communications Network (ECN) licence in August 4, 2017 which signalled commencement of the renewal process. He said as a result, the commission embarked on a process to evaluate Swazi MTN’s compliance with the prevailing legislation, licence conditions, regulations, decisions, guidelines, determinations and authorisations issued by the commission.

“The commission advised Swazi MTN of the process to be followed and requested the company to submit information to be considered in terms of the licence renewal process based on its licence and regulatory requirements.

‘‘Swazi MTN duly submitted the said information to the commission which then undertook an evaluation exercise,” Dlamini disclosed.
The CEO said the effective date for the decision was November 16, 2018.

Respect

The Times SUNDAY recently reported that a mobile telecommunications company has to pay an annual licence fee to ECCOM and, as shown in the latter’s 2016/2017 annual report, Eswatini MTN paid E49.4 million in respect of this fee in that particular financial year.

It was stated that this accounted for more than half of the total income made by the telecommunications regulator that year, which stood at E96.8 million.
What Eswatini MTN paid was more than what the country’s second mobile telecommunications operator, Eswatini Mobile paid that year, which was E35.1 million. 

“There is a possibility that Eswatini MTN will be required to share sites and masts with Eswatini Mobile as part of the conditions of being granted a new licence.
‘‘That’s a tough condition,” said one of the sources as quoted by the Times SUNDAY.

Pronouncing

It was also related that in 2017, ECCOM made a decision in terms of the Swaziland Communications Commission Act of 2013 by pronouncing that sites and masts or towers were an essential service.

The regulator noted that Eswatini MTN was vertically integrated and dominant in the downstream mobile access, voice and SMS market, hence competition problems may arise, hence the importance of the ex ante regulation of site and mast/tower sharing was paramount.

“MTN must provide reasonable, transparent, non-discriminatory and cost based access to sites, towers and masts,” ECCOM said.
The commission defines the market narrowly as the backbone facility market and Eswatini Post and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC) holds 100 per cent of the market and is therefore dominant. ECCOM has powers to make regulations and decisions that allow for ex ante regulation, that is, the regulation of potential competition problems before they occur.

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