Judgment: Moore and Others v Mobile Telephone Networks and Another (D9017/2018) [2020] ZAKZDHC 59 (30 October 2020) 

 http://www.saflii.org/za/cases/ZAKZDHC/2020/59.html

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By Siboniso Mngadi, Jun 14, 2020

Durban – Merewent residents have accused telecommunications company Atlas Towers Group of targeting “impoverished” communities by choosing to place a cell mast in their neighbourhood.

The company erects radio masts to improve wireless connectivity for mobile network operators. However, some Merewent residents say they believe the masts pose a serious health risk.

This week, angry residents came out in numbers and halted the erection of a mast inside a residential property on Umbria Road.

They staged a protest opposing the installation and asked the contractor to vacate the site.

Cell masts have been removed in some areas of Durban following public outcry.

Merewent residents who signed a petition with the assistance of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDEA) accused the company of flouting land-use by-laws by erecting the mast without the consent of residents.

Read more at: https://www.iol.co.za/sunday-tribune/news/durban-residents-up-in-arms-over-cell-mast-49365790

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 1,000 5G sites in major cities in the next two years

Rain’s chief strategy officer, Brandon Leigh explained at the announcement in Barcelona:

“We have been live since November in a very small pocket but we now have commercial network availability in Johannesburg. But the device ecosystem hasn’t caught up to the pace of our rollout yet. Obviously you need to rollout the network before the devices, but if you had a handset or 5G device of some sort it would be working in Johannesburg right now. So hopefully by mid-year we will have coverage in the two major metropolitan areas, [Johannesburg and Cape Town], and to have a commercial launch to clients. Then following that quite rapidly rollout a 1000-site network which should cover initially the major metros in the country and later even more,”

In the first phase of the roll out, Rain has deployed 20 new base stations in Johannesburg and Cape Town, covering the main districts of the two cities. According to Rain, it will continue to roll out 5G infrastructure across its network with the aim of covering much of Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban in due course.

According to Forbes, Rain operates in all the major metropolitan areas with 3,000 towers, with plans to expand to over 5,000 in the next two years.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2019/02/26/data-only-operator-rain-launches-africas-5g-live-network/#45e4db5d56f5

Expansion will provide “ultra-broadband” services to homes and enterprises.

Roos:

“Our focus in the beginning, and the first use case which I think makes by far the most economic sense, is very fast wireless broadband, or fibre in the sky as we like to call it, to people’s homes and businesses. But in the future you are going to get a whole range of other devices from handsets to IOT devices etc.“

During a MWC keynote at the huge industry event in Barcelona CNBC anchor Kren Tso described Huawei as:

“arguably the most contentious company in the world right now“

Mobile phone 5G products will be only be released in September. No 5G smartphones exist in South Africa at present.

The network is based on Huawei’s 5G end-to-end product solutions: 5G-enabled applications in terms of industry video, remote driving, and smart manufacturing.

Rain’s and Huawei’s 5G network is utilizing the 3.6GHz spectrum, existing LTE network and allocated spectrum for 5G deployment.

Rain first demonstrated its 5G network in September 2018.

South Africa’s more established mobile operators, including Vodacom and MTN, are unable to launch 5G services until they get access to more spectrum from communications regulator Icasa.

“It is an important step to work with Rain in bringing the first 5G network construction to South Africa,” said Shi Jilin, Huawei’s president of cloud and networks.

While no 5G smartphones exist in South Africa at present, a slew of devices supporting the technology have been announced at  the MWC 2019, including the Huawei Mate X, Xiaomi Mi Mix 3 5G, LG V50 ThinQ 5G and Samsung Galaxy S10 5G. Huawei has confirmed that the new MateX device will be coming to South Africa around the middle of 2019.

Rain CEO, Willem Roos:

” We are supportive of President Ramaphosa’s investment drive in the country and hope to contribute to readying South Africa for the Fourth Industrial Revolution.“

Sources:

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/companies/telecoms-and-technology/2019-02-27-rain-and-huawei-roll-out-high-speed-5g-in-sa/

https://www.itweb.co.za/content/5yONPvEEZxKvXWrb

Rain and Huawei Launch South Africa’s First 5G Commercial Network

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tobyshapshak/2019/02/26/data-only-operator-rain-launches-africas-5g-live-network/#45e4db5d56f5

https://mybroadband.co.za/news/cellular/297518-rain-launches-commercial-5g-network.html?source=newsletter

https://techcentral.co.za/rain-launches-first-commercial-5g-network-in-south-africa/87811/

Rain, Huawei launch South Africa’s ‘first commercial 5G network’

https://www.huawei.com/en/press-events/news/2019/2/rain-huawei-first-5g-commercial-network-south-africa

https://stuff.co.za/rain-and-huawei-to-offer-5g-in-south-africa-in-september/

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An organisation calling itself the Durban Anti-Cell Mast Alliance (Dacma) on Friday filed papers at the high court in Durban to stop MTN South Africa from rolling out new towers in the coastal city, it said.

Dacma, which was founded in 2017 to “protest the illegal roll-out of MTN cell masts across Durban”, said in a statement on Monday morning that it lodged papers with the court asking for “a review of the ‘secret deal’ that MTN concluded with the eThekwini municipality” in April 2016. TechCentral has seen the court papers.

The alliance alleged that eThekwini head of disaster management Vincent Ngubane “absolved MTN from any regulatory processes” when it erected new infrastructure in the city.

It has accused MTN and the municipality of “disregarding” by-laws and town planning schemes, and of contravening national legislation” and health and safety guidelines.

“Despite numerous newspaper reports, community activism, council questions, applications via the Promotion of Access to Information Act, legal correspondence and public meetings, neither eThekwini municipality nor MTN have done anything to explain how this situation came about, or whether they intend to rectify it.

“We have been forced to go to court because both MTN and the eThekwini municipality have consistently lied about this secret arrangement,” said Dacma spokeswoman Niki Moore in the statement.

“This infrastructure roll-out was completely unprocedural and secret, with the result that MTN put up cell masts, hundreds of them, next to creches, schools, old age homes, on people’s pavements, in play parks, and right outside their homes — with absolutely no consultation, no site planning, no permissions, no scoping and no public process. Anyone who complained was threatened and intimidated,” Moore alleged.

“The research we have done has shown that this roll-out was completely unnecessary, as none of these masts increased cellular connectivity in areas where it was actually required. MTN has done the cellular telephone industry no favours: by proceeding illegally and unprocedurally, they have raised huge concerns about their industry in the minds of the public. Now people are really talking about cell masts, and the effects they are having on property prices, the environment and people’s health.”

‘Better ways’

Dacma said in the statement that is “not against” the roll-out of communications technology but “believes there are better ways to go about it”. It also warned about the health impact of “long-term high-frequency microwaves”.

“The cell companies hide behind the fact that they abide by so-called ‘international limits’,” said Moore, “but they suppress the fact that these limits have been unchanged since 1998, are based on discredited science, and do not consider the massive changes in technology in the last 10 years.

“It is nonsense that municipalities, who make money out of cell mast rental, can dismiss any community concerns about the unverified effects of cell masts from the people who are forced to live right next to them. We are hoping that this court case will make both municipalities and mobile telephone companies stop and think about their reckless actions.”

In response to a query from TechCentral, MTN South Africa spokeswoman Jacqui O’Sullivan said that in February 2018, the eThekwini municipality defined the “ex post facto process” (retrospective action) that MTN and other mobile operators making use of “camera poles” would be required to follow related to 63 poles.

“We immediately began preparing to meet these requirements and have made significant progress since then,” she said.

“A total of 63 applications for environmental impact assessments on the sites were submitted in March (with 25 received to date); together with 63 applications for approval from the Civil Aviation Authority (six have been received to date). In addition, we submitted 40 land-use special consent applications on 3 August and are awaiting responses to these. We remain committed to this process.”

O’Sullivan said MTN entered a public/private partnership with the municipality through the Disaster Management and Emergency Control Unit ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup. Years later, this partnership was shown to be misaligned with another regulation of the department within the municipality (the Land Use Management Unit) in terms of the municipal approval processes. “All these sites must be compliant: compliance matters and our communities matter,” she said.

“It is clear that a lack of alignment must be resolved and MTN, along with all the mobile network operators that are currently using these camera poles for their masts must be held to the same standards. They, too, must follow due process.”

MTN, she added, will be “entirely guided” by the municipal process. “We want to do our best to continue offering the people of eThekwini the high-speed and wide-scale coverage we have been able to offer them. However, we will also not stand for anything other than compliance. We will do our best to try and meet both sets of expectations.”  — (c) 2018 NewsCentral Media

MTN faces court challenge over mast roll-out

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Wednesday 8 August 2018

MTN South Africa has been sued by an organisation calling itself the Durban Anti-Cell Mast Alliance (Dacma), seeking to stop the mobile company from rolling out new towers in the coastal city, TechCentral reported. Dacma which was founded in 2017 to protest against what it called the “illegal” deployment of masts in Durban. It said that it lodged papers with the high court in Durban asking for a review of a “secret deal” that it claims MTN concluded with the eThekwini municipality in April 2016.

The alliance alleges that eThekwini head of disaster management Vincent Ngubane “absolved MTN from any regulatory processes” when it erected new infrastructure in the city. Dacma said it has gone to court because both MTN and eThekwini municipality have consistently lied about the arrangement.  It has accused MTN and the municipality of “disregarding” by-laws and town planning schemes, and of contravening national legislation and health and safety guidelines.

It says despite numerous newspaper reports, community activism, council questions, applications via the Promotion of Access to Information Act, legal correspondence and public meetings, neither eThekwini municipality nor MTN has done anything to explain how this situation came about, or whether they intend to rectify it.

In response to a query from TechCentral, MTN South Africa spokeswoman Jacqui O’Sullivan said that in February, the eThekwini municipality defined the “ex post facto process” (retrospective action) that MTN and other mobile operators making use of “camera poles”, would be required to follow, related to 63 poles. O’Sullivan said MTN immediately began preparing to meet these requirements and had made significant progress since then. https://www.telecompaper.com/news/mtn-south-africa-faces-lawsuit-over-mast-roll-out-in-durban–1255979

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March 3, 2018

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