When we speak about development in SA, we often speak in the language of access. Access to broadband. Access to opportunity. Access to the digital economy.
But we rarely ask the uncomfortable question: who owns the infrastructure that makes this access possible?
Across our townships and rural communities, fibre is being rolled out, towers are rising, and data consumption is growing rapidly.
Yet ownership of these networks remains concentrated in a handful of established players.
Communities consume the services, but seldom participate in building or owning the systems themselves.
This is not simply a business issue — it is a structural one.
The Electronic Communications Act, 2005 (Act No. 36 of 2005) was designed to promote competition, universal access, and transformation in the ICT sector.
It recognises that communications infrastructure is not a luxury: that it is foundational to economic participation, education, healthcare and governance.
And yet, the way licences have evolved creates a system where entry into infrastructure ownership is still mediated by capital and historical advantage.
Instead of issuing new licences in a way that broadens participation, the market increasingly relies on licence transfers between existing players.
The result is a secondary market where licences become scarce assets, often priced beyond the reach of emerging operators.
For small and black-owned ICT businesses, this creates a difficult calculation.
To invest significant capital simply to obtain a licence — only to remain dependent on incumbents for wholesale access and core infrastructure — makes long-term sustainability uncertain.
Many are discouraged before they even begin.
Meanwhile, townships are still treated as markets to be served, instead of ecosystems to be built.
There is nothing inherently wrong with capital — investment is necessary. Large operators play an important role in expanding coverage across the country.
But capital alone cannot be the sole ticket to enter communities, extract value, and leave ownership concentrated elsewhere.
If development does not include local ownership, it risks becoming extraction in a more modern form.
Township economies are dynamic.
They are home to entrepreneurs, technicians, engineers, and young people with digital skills.
Local operators often understand the terrain, the demand patterns, and the realities of affordability better than national firms operating from distant headquarters.
With the right regulatory support, they can deploy last-mile networks, maintain infrastructure more responsively, and reinvest earnings within the community.
Universal access should not be measured only by coverage maps.
It should also be measured by who builds, who maintains, and who benefits economically from the infrastructure. This is where policy matters.
The current regulatory moment presents an opportunity to rethink how infrastructure licences are issued.
Introducing new licences, designed with clear rollout obligations and proportional compliance requirements, could open space for emerging operators to participate meaningfully.
Conditions can be crafted to prevent speculation and ensure that licences are used to deploy networks in underserved areas, rather than simply traded.
This is not about lowering standards or creating protectionist enclaves. It is about aligning the regulatory framework with the constitutional commitment to equality and redress.
Markets do not exist in a vacuum. They are shaped by history. If the starting point was unequal, neutral rules can unintentionally preserve that inequality.
Affirmative redress in ICT does not mean excluding established players.
It means broadening the base of infrastructure ownership so that communities are not permanent consumers of networks they do not control.
Imagine a township where local firms co-own fibre routes, manage wireless networks, and partner with schools and small businesses to expand connectivity.
Imagine technical skills developed locally because infrastructure is not outsourced entirely.
Imagine profits that circulate within the same community that generates the demand.
This is not utopian. It is a practical extension of existing law — if it could just be implemented with intent.
In SA, the term ‘inclusive growth’ flies around freely.
But the digital era is here now, and inclusion must move beyond access to embrace participation.
It must include the right to build. If communities do not build, own, and govern their infrastructure, inequality will simply upgrade its tools.
The question before us is not whether townships need connectivity. They clearly do.
The deeper question is whether they will remain end users of networks designed elsewhere, or become producers of the infrastructure that shapes their economic future.
Real progress begins when the people connected by the network are also the ones who built it.
>creditparsans<Buzani is a business consultant and youth empowerment advocate, as well as a founding member of an award-winning Mdantsane SME
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