The Competition Commission has been asked to rule on an application from the Association of Comms and Technology (ACT) that would grant a five-year exemption from certain competition rules for shared rural infrastructure. The request, filed on behalf of ACT’s members, a group of smaller wireless providers, would let them co-locate equipment, lease facilities and offer open-access networks without the usual scrutiny that applies to agreements between rivals.
ACT argues that in South Africa’s most sparsely populated regions, building separate towers or fibre routes for each operator is not economically viable. A single site must be acquired, built, powered, secured and linked to backhaul before it can serve even one customer. In dense urban markets, several operators can share those fixed costs and still compete. In a low-density area, however, the same cost barrier can stop new entrants from ever reaching the market.
Why the exemption matters
For small and medium-sized telecom firms, the exemption could mean the difference between launching a service and staying on the drawing board. By sharing towers or fibre, they avoid duplicating capital expenditure, the money spent on physical assets, and can redirect those funds into expanding coverage, upgrading capacity or improving network resilience. The exemption does not give any operator control over retail pricing, product choices or customer allocation; those remain separate competitive decisions.
Paul Colmer, a commentator for TechCentral, acknowledges that co-location, facilities leasing, roaming and open-access infrastructure all have a place in a healthy market. His objection is to a blanket exemption that would lock competitors into aligned future plans. He worries that the first operator to build a shared site could become the de-facto monopoly, even without a formal exclusivity agreement.
The Competition Commission will have to weigh those concerns against the legal framework set out in the Competition Act. Section 4(1)(a) prohibits agreements that substantially prevent or lessen competition unless the parties can demonstrate that the arrangement yields technological, efficiency or other pro-competitive benefits that outweigh any negative effect. Section 10 provides a separate route for exemptions that support statutory objectives such as facilitating entry by small businesses and historically disadvantaged firms.
Both provisions share the premise that cooperation between rivals is not automatically anti-competitive; the impact must be proven with evidence. In practice, this means ACT will need to show that shared infrastructure will not foreclose access, entrench incumbents or raise rivals’ costs. The Commission will also look for safeguards, information barriers, anonymised data sharing, independent oversight and non-discriminatory access, to ensure that commercial secrets unrelated to the infrastructure remain protected.
From a practical standpoint, the exemption could reduce the time it takes for new networks to reach remote villages. Without the need to duplicate towers, a provider might bring service to a community in a few years rather than a decade, or avoid a project that would never become commercially viable. That does not guarantee lower retail prices, however. As the article notes, cheaper deployment costs do not automatically translate into cheaper bills for end users. Retail pricing remains a separate competitive arena that the exemption does not touch.
For rural entrepreneurs and small businesses that rely on reliable internet, the outcome of this decision could affect their ability to operate efficiently. Better connectivity can improve access to markets, enable digital payments and support e-learning. Conversely, if the exemption is denied and each operator must build its own infrastructure, many rural areas may remain unserved, limiting economic opportunities.
The Commission’s process is designed to test the claims on an evidence-based basis. ACT has invited all interested parties, including the Wireless Access Providers Association (Wapa) and other smaller operators, to submit arguments for the record. The final ruling will hinge on whether the proposed sharing arrangement can be shown to deliver net benefits without undermining competition.
