Abstract
The degree of success or failure of each of South Africa’s universal access and service interventions needs to be evaluated along several lines: the policy process itself, the implementation track record and impacts of the various programmes, and the outcomes for political actors. A reflection on the entire span of universal access and service policy interventions in South Africa over the 20 year period under consideration shows that the country’s adoption, adaptation and implementation of a series of good practice interventions, derived from the international ICT policy regime, has important lessons for universal access and service policy and regulation.
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Notes
- 1.
ICASA has proposed to reduce Telkom’s payphone obligation from 120,000 to 25,000—the company currently claims to have a mere 20,000 in service (McLeod, 2016). The promised impact assessment did not materialise.
- 2.
The proposed provisions for a so-called Wireless Open Access Network (WOAN) licensee.
- 3.
This assessment predates, and is arguably thus not yet coloured by, the revelations of maladministration and corruption that began to surface in 2012 (see Chapter 5).
- 4.
Interestingly, the multi-party Parliamentary Portfolio Committee in Parliament, to whom the Minister, the Department, the regulator and the Agency, are formally politically accountable, has largely escaped the critical public eye.
- 5.
Later slashed to 5250.
- 6.
Aside from a brief mention of Pakistan, USAASA is the sole specific case cited in any detail, although the report does claim that in several instances “entire senior fund management teams have been replaced”.
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Lewis, C. (2020). UAS Policy: From Conception to Outcomes. In: Regulating Telecommunications in South Africa. Information Technology and Global Governance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43527-1_8
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