SADC reciprocal licence proposal gathers pace

At the quarterly ICASA/SARL Liaison Committee meeting held on Thursday, the SARL (South African Radio League) requested that South Africa's regulator, ICASA, consider a reciprocal licensing agreement with SADC countries.

Some SADC countries are already issuing licenses to South African visitors and the SARL requested ICASA to do so reciprocally and to include all SADC countries.

ICASA responded positively and will set the wheels in motion from both a South African, as well as a SADC perspective. The concept will be put to the Communication Regulators' Association of Southern Africa (CRASA).

CRASA is an association of Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) regulators and other stakeholders in the information and communications industry in Southern Africa.

CRASA was founded in 1997 within the framework of the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) Protocol on Transport, Communications and Meteorology.

This was a response to the SADC leadership's common vision, which recognised that the individual information and communications sectors in the region were too small to have a comparative advantage in the global arena - and furthermore to attract adequate investment to build modern infrastructure for provision of universally accessed ICT services.

In essence, our historical linkage to our regional economic community - the SADC - positions us better to lobby for a conducive regulatory environment to investment throughout the region.

Other issues discussed included the table of frequency allocation, access to 135,7 to 137,8 kHz, expansion of the 160 metre band, a new allocation around 5 MHz and various issues regarding the microwave bands. It was also agreed that in future, ZS9 call signs would only be allocated to competition stations.

The next meeting will be held in mid-February.

Source: The South African Radio League