The dangers of treating spectrum as a fundraising tool in South Africa

South Africa has developed a dangerous habit: whenever public finances tighten, radio frequency spectrum is treated as a convenient fundraising lever. It is auctioned off, billions are celebrated, and the story ends there.

What is rarely interrogated is what this approach costs the country over time. Spectrum is not a luxury asset or a discretionary revenue stream. It is essential infrastructure, as foundational to modern life as roads, water, and electricity. When we use it primarily to raise money, we quietly tax connectivity itself, and the burden falls most heavily on those who are already excluded.

To understand why this matters, we need to look back. Under apartheid, spectrum was never neutral. It was tightly controlled and deliberately deployed to serve the political and economic interests of the state. Telecommunications and broadcasting infrastructure followed apartheid geography, with dense, reliable networks in white urban areas and minimal or non-existent coverage in townships and rural homelands. What people could hear, see, and access was carefully regulated. Spectrum functioned as a tool of control and exclusion, and the uneven digital landscape we still live with today is, in part, a product of those decisions.

With the advent of democracy in 1994, spectrum policy was meant to support national reconstruction. Liberalisation, competition, and universal access became policy goals, and new mobile licences helped expand basic telephony at scale. Connectivity was framed as a developmental instrument, capable of bridging spatial and economic divides. For a time, this vision guided policy and investment.

Over the years, however, another logic crept in. As mobile communications became profitable, spectrum increasingly came to be viewed as a fiscal opportunity. Auctions grew larger, reserve prices rose, and success was measured by how much revenue flowed into the National Revenue Fund. The 2022 high demand spectrum auction, which raised more than R14 billion, was widely celebrated. Yet little attention was paid to what that revenue really represented: higher costs for operators, higher prices for consumers, and slower investment in areas where returns are uncertain.

The outcome is a paradox. South Africa hosts some of the most advanced mobile network operators on the continent, yet millions of people still experience poor-quality or unaffordable connectivity. Large portions of licensed spectrum remain underutilised in rural areas and informal settlements, while smaller operators that arewilling and able to serve those communities struggle to access spectrum at all.

Local ISPs and wireless providers are often the ones deploying infrastructure in townships, installing radios in villages, and connecting schools, clinics, and small businesses. They understand local demand and build where national operators frequently hesitate. Yet the spectrum regime continues to favour national scale over local impact.This is why the conversation around dynamic spectrum access is so important.

The regulator’s move toward allowing shared and opportunistic use of certain bands represents a meaningful shift away from rigid, exclusive licensing. It acknowledges a technical reality: spectrum can be shared safely and efficiently using modern coordination technologies. But limiting these reforms mainly to so called innovation bands is not enough.

If efficiency and inclusion are truly the goal, dynamic access must eventually extend into high demand IMT bands, particularly in areas where licensed spectrum lies idle. Use-it-or-share-it should become enforceable policy, not an abstract principle.

There is also a more fundamental question we must confront. If spectrum is a national asset, who should benefit most from it? In a country marked by deep inequality, there is a compelling case for allocating spectrum at zero or nominal cost to smaller operators that commit to serving underserved communities. This would not be a subsidy for inefficiency, but a development intervention.

Geographically limited licences, community network authorisations, and localised access rights could unlock rapid, low-cost connectivity where it is needed most. The social and economic returns would far outweigh the modest licence fees forgone.

South Africa’s spectrum choices are also shaped by global rules set at the World Radiocommunication Conference under the International Telecommunication Union. Africa currently falls within Region One, alongside Europe and parts of the Middle East.

While this arrangement made historical sense, it increasingly constrains the continent’s ability to prioritise its own developmental needs. Africa’s connectivity challenges are not Europe’s challenges. We have younger populations, vast rural areas, and affordability constraints that demand flexible and innovative spectrum frameworks.

South Africa, with its regulatory maturity and technical expertise, should be leading a continental push for a stronger and more coherent African voice in global spectrum negotiations. At a minimum, Africa must assert common positions that reflect its developmental realities. In the longer term, the idea of Africa being recognised as its own spectrum region should no longer be dismissed. Digital sovereignty begins with meaningful control over the airwaves.

At home, we must also properly recognise the role of local ISPs and smaller operators in the spectrum economy. They are not peripheral actors; they are often the difference between connectivity and exclusion. By continuing to design spectrum policy around revenue maximisation and national-scale operators, we risk reproducing the inequities of the past in a new form.

Exclusion today is less visible, but no less real. It is embedded in pricing models, licensing frameworks, and policy choices that privilege incumbency over inclusion. South Africa now faces a choice. We can continue to treat spectrum as a convenient fiscal asset, auctioned to the highest bidder whenever public finances come under pressure. Or we can recognise it as shared national infrastructure that must be managed in the public interest. That would require separating spectrum policy from short-term revenue needs, expanding dynamic sharing into high-demand bands, giving smaller operators meaningful access to spectrum, and using our influence to shape a more equitable continental and global framework.

Spectrum may be invisible, but its consequences are not. It shapes who can participate in the digital economy, who can study online, who can start a business,and who remains locked out. If we continue to sell it as a once-off asset, we will keep buying inequality with our own airwaves. South Africa can, and must, choose a different path, one that uses spectrum not to fund the present, but to secure the future.

Luvo Grey, Secretary-General of Progressive Blacks in ICT, he writes in his personal capacity.

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.

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