Summary

  • ICASA has reopened the telecommunications-affordability inquiry through a staged provider questionnaire and a separate consumer survey; it has not announced findings or interventions.
  • The OTT inquiry remains at an earlier procedural point: its notice was withdrawn and ICASA says it will issue a clearer version later, with an opportunity for previous respondents to resubmit or add to their comments.

The most consequential part of ICASA’s reset is the gap between two evidence tracks. Affordability has a new route back into the public record. The separate inquiry into over-the-top (OTT) services does not yet have a replacement notice. That difference matters because neither process can produce a defensible regulatory conclusion until participants know what questions are being asked, what evidence is wanted and how to take part.

On 30 September, ICASA said it still intended to investigate the affordability of telecommunications services and had published a new notice. The following day, it explained that the earlier notices were withdrawn to address administrative and procedural matters. The affordability notice was to be republished with a draft questionnaire for comment. For OTT services, ICASA said a new notice would come later, with greater context and clearer participation guidance. Stakeholders that had already submitted comments could resubmit or substantiate them after republication.

The affordability inquiry now has a sequence rather than a single open-ended invitation. Its notice provides ten working days for comments on the supply-side questionnaire. ICASA then plans to publish a briefing note within ten working days after that window closes. Providers have 45 working days from publication of that note to submit questionnaire responses. ICASA may ask for one-to-one meetings to clarify information, and it will also conduct a separate consumer survey to examine affordability from the demand side.

That division is analytically important. Provider submissions can describe the services and commercial conditions that operators control; a consumer survey can ask how affordability is experienced from the other side of the transaction. The notice does not yet tell the public how the survey will be sampled, how its results will be weighed against provider information, or how affordability will be translated into a regulatory option. Those are open design questions, not evidence that the inquiry has already reached a view.

After the first evidence phase, ICASA expects to publish a discussion document for 45 working days of public comment. Respondents can say whether they would seek an oral presentation if hearings are held; the notice says hearings may take place, not that they are guaranteed. A summary of findings is due within 90 days after the inquiry concludes. The timetable depends on the notice’s procedural triggers, so it should not be mistaken for a fixed calendar of outcomes.

The inquiry’s stated purpose is to investigate voice and broadband affordability and possible market or regulatory interventions under section 4B of the ICASA Act. ICASA identifies low-income households, rural communities, young people and informal-sector workers among the groups for whom affordability remains a concern. That statement defines the policy question; it is not a quantified finding about current prices or household access.

The split therefore marks a procedural reset, not a retreat from either issue. It gives the affordability inquiry a route from questions to evidence and then to deliberation. The OTT process has to rebuild its participation notice first. Participants can supply facts, challenge assumptions and identify consequences, but the consultation does not transfer ICASA’s statutory decision role to whichever groups submit the most material. What happens next depends on the quality and comparability of the evidence, and on whether the regulator explains how it will use it.

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