Interview: Siyabonga Cwele on spectrum and more

Telecommunications & postal services minister Siyabonga Cwele sat down with TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod in Cape Town on Wednesday on the sidelines of the FTTX Council Africa conference to discuss a range of issues affecting the industry. In the podcast, McLeod asks Cwele about government's plans, finally, to move ahead with guidelines and policies to fast-track the deployment of telcoms infrastructure. Also in the interview, the minister provides an update on the CSIR's investigation into how much spectrum should be reserved for government's planned wholesale open-access network (Woan), and the process from here. How much spectrum should commercial operators be allocated, and how much should be reserved for the Woan? Cwele talks about his legal dispute with communications regulator Icasa over the allocation of spectrum to operators and why the issue hasn't been resolved. He also provides his views on South Africa hosting the International Telecommunication Union's Telecom World conference in 2018.