Last week was busy and stressful. We wrote an ~80 page business plan for Amobia. It included a marketing plan, technical operations plan, full 5 year financial model spreadsheet (that alone kept KPMG busy for a week) and a company profile. It was a pretty impressive stack of paper with all the annexes. You can imagine it involved some late nights and tight deadlines.

It was crunch time for most ISPs (VANS license holders) with only one week to submit comments on the proposed ICASA license conversion process.

Quick (laymens) background on the ECA conversion, ECS and ECNS. The old/current telecoms licensing model (Telecoms Act of 1996) is quickly being converted to the ECA (Electronic Communications Act of 2005).

There are two primary groups of licenses (which I care about):
Electronic Communication Service (ECS) – let’s call it a service license
Electronic Communication Network Service (ECNS) – let’s call it a network license

Now split each of these in two types.. “class” and “individual” and you get 4 options. Listed in order of value/scope:
1. Class ECS
2. Individual ECS
3. Class ECNS
4. Individual ECNS

ECNS licenses allow you to build infrastructure. Inv. ECNS gives you access to scarce resources like frequency spectrum. Keep in mind Telkom / Vodacom / MTN will get 4.

Class licenses are limited in geographic scope.. you can only operate in one municipal area. Indv. ECS allows you to provide national VoIP services and interconnect with other voice providers.

Frogfoot and Amobia’s VANS licenses have both been listed for conversion to Individual ECS in the latest draft. This is 2 out of 4 in the very simple scale above. Actually first prize is an Individual ECS and an Individual ECNS.

Most VANS are listed to be converted to the most basic license (1). There are about 500+ VANS license holders. There are about 150 ISPA members and about 35 WAPA members. More about this later.

Our mission was to basically write a motivational document for why Amobia requires and Individual ECNS (4). While we were at it we also wrote a letter to request an Individual ECNS (4) for Frogfoot, mostly because of the idea that Individual ECNS holders can provide/provision interational internet access.. but it was not nearly as long a document as the Amobia one.

Amobia operates infrastructure in 4 primary areas: Western Cape, Gauteng, Eastern Cape and North West province.. not counting wifi hotspot areas. As you can see we require an Individual ECNS.

The fun part is that an Individual ECNS can cost anything between R1.5m and R100m and you have exactly one shot at it in the conversion process. After that you have to be invited by the Department of Communications to apply for an Individual ECNS.. don’t hold your breath.

ICASA have indicated that they will announce the next (final) draft of the license conversion matrix by the end of November. These are very interesting times. Make or break.

All WISPs need at least a Class ECNS. Currently no WAPA member has been marked for conversion to an ECNS license. Big problem.

Why the one week deadline if this is such an important process? Well, I think it’s a simple ecosystem issue. How many lions can you put in a park before they starve?. We are talking about assigning scarce resources and it must be an open process. Well, open enough. You simply filter with very limited time scales. If you have the resource and you can to drop everything and work on your submission.. you must be a serious player. Smart tactic. It’s just my theory.

Of the 500+ VANS, let’s say the 150 ISPA members and 35 WAPA members have a clue and know about the process. I think the rest have no idea what’s going on. Maybe 1/2 of these want or need an ECNS or could pay the license fees. Maybe 1/2 of these can write a convincing business plan with 5 year financials in a week. My guess is that only 40 companies will respond with something useful.

Very interesting times.

“We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We’re going to live on. We’re going to survive” — id4