Radar: ICASA says ISPs need 30% HDG ownership when their licences are renewed in 2028

South Africa's individual telecoms licences are heading for their first renewal since the 2009 conversions, and the regulator says ownership will be part of the test. ICASA chairperson Mothibi Ramusi told MyBroadband this week that holders of individual network (I-ECNS) and service (I-ECS) licences must be at least 30% owned by historically disadvantaged groups (HDGs). Operators that fall short when their licences come up for renewal in 2028, he said, can sell a 30% stake to a partner or shut down.

That gives smaller internet service providers a deadline they can put on a calendar. ISPA has told ICASA that the Altech court case led to more than 500 operators receiving individual licences almost overnight in 2009, and much of the country's fibre and wireless competition grew from that cohort. Some of those businesses are run by a single owner. For them, the choice Ramusi described is between finding a qualifying shareholder before the renewal window and losing the licence that lets them operate.

Ramusi said ICASA asked all licence holders "to align with the 30% HDG legislative requirement" after the 2009 conversions, and that he would be surprised if non-compliant licensees were still operating. He also conceded that how shareholding should be calculated "is not a settled matter yet", and that ICASA and communications minister Solly Malatsi each hold a position on it.

What the February notice confirms

ICASA's notice of 20 February 2026 tells I-ECNS and I-ECS licensees to apply for renewal between 12 and 6 months before their licences expire, under the Processes and Procedures Regulations for Individual Licences, 2010. Its worked example is a licence issued on 15 January 2009. That licence expires on 14 January 2029, and the renewal window runs from 15 January to 14 July 2028. Licensees must use the effective date on their own licence to find their window. A licence that took effect later in 2009 does not share the January dates.

ICASA called this the first renewal cycle since the Electronic Communications Act took effect in 2005. In the same notice it said a further notice would set out the process and what renewal applications must contain. That further notice is the document owner-run ISPs are still waiting for. The February notice sets the clock. It does not yet say which documents, share registers or ownership calculations the application has to include.

The 30% figure comes from ICASA's ownership regulations, which apply to individual licensees and not to class licensees. The distinction matters for anyone reading the rule as if it covered every internet business in the country. Class licensees are outside it. Individual network and service licensees are inside it, and that is the group heading into the 2028 windows.

Who has to find a partner

The operators most exposed are the ones that took individual licences in the 2009 rush and never brought in outside shareholders. ISPA's account to the regulator is that more than 500 operators received those licences almost overnight after the Altech case, and that fibre and wireless competition grew from them. A single-owner ISP that still holds an individual licence cannot treat 30% as a target for a later funding round if the chair's reading holds: the stake has to be in place when the licence is renewed, or the alternative he described is to shut down.

Ramusi's surprise that non-compliant licensees would still be operating sits next to his own concession. ICASA asked holders to align after 2009. He has not said how many current licensees sit below 30%, and he has said the method of counting shareholding is not settled. A regulator can believe the rule has applied for years and still not have published how indirect or trust shareholding is counted.

The argument Malatsi and ICASA have not closed

Malatsi's policy direction of 12 December 2025 told ICASA to "urgently consider alignment" of its ownership and licensing rules with the ICT sector code. That would include equity equivalent programmes, which let multinationals invest in local skills, suppliers or infrastructure instead of selling shares to black South Africans. The same 30% rule has held up Starlink's licensing. TechCentral reported in April that ICASA had not published a substantive response, and Malatsi said then that consideration of the direction "cannot continue in perpetuity".

Equity equivalents are the live dispute inside the 30% number. If they count, a foreign operator can meet the rule without selling shares. If they do not, the routes Ramusi described for a shortfall at renewal are a sale of a 30% stake or closure. He told MyBroadband that he and the minister each hold a position, and that the calculation "is not a settled matter yet". Until that is settled, an owner-run ISP cannot know whether a skills programme, a supplier scheme or only a share sale will be accepted in a 2028 application.

A second process, for people who want a new licence

A second process runs alongside the renewals. Ramusi and councillor Charley Lewis told MyBroadband on 27 October that ICASA aims to publish a discussion document on licensing new network operators and service providers before the end of October. That date is the regulator's stated aim, not a gazetted deadline. Gazetting starts a 45-day public consultation, which may be followed by hearings and a findings document 90 days after them.

Today a small operator that wants an individual licence has to buy one from a willing seller and apply for a transfer. ISPA regulatory adviser Dominic Cull said that typically costs more than R1 million and takes at least five to eight months. The discussion document is about whether that secondary market stays the only door. It does not, by itself, change the 30% test on the licences that already exist.

Dates to watch

End of October 2026: ICASA's target for the new-licence discussion document. This is the regulator's stated aim, not a gazetted date.

Forty-five days after gazetting: public comments close.

January to July 2028: the renewal window for licences that took effect in January 2009. Other licences follow their own effective dates.

14 January 2029: the expiry of a licence issued on 15 January 2009, if it is not renewed.

What is unresolved

ICASA has not said publicly how many current licensees are below 30%, how it will count indirect or trust shareholding, or whether equity equivalents will count before the 2028 windows open. The further notice it promised in February, setting out what renewal applications must contain, is the document that will answer those questions for owner-run ISPs. Until it appears, the chair's line that an operator can sell a 30% stake or shut down is the clearest public statement of the consequence, and the unsettled calculation is the reason a licensee still cannot price the stake it may have to sell.

Sources: ICASA notice, 20 February 2026; MyBroadband, 27 and 28 October 2026; TechCentral, 24 April 2026.