Late last year Vodacom announced that it would be acquiring a stake in Community Invest Ventures Holdings’ (CIVH) fibre assets. This would see the creation of InfraCo, a new entity which Vodacom would have a 30 percent equity interest in.

Importantly, CIVH is the holding company for a group of firms of which Vumatel and DFA are the largest subsidiaries.

Now, the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA) is looking for clarity on how this deal would work, particularly as regards wholesale offerings.

The association says that its 205 ISP members have, to date, struggled to obtain wholesale offerings from Vodacom. In contrast, Vumatel and DFA haven been more open to providing wholesale access. As such, ISPA wants to know which tack InfraCo will take.

“Promised cash injections to advance the rollout of high-speed fibre in South Africa are to be welcomed, but ISPA is concerned about the ability of a traditional closed access culture to be successfully married to an historically open access, entrepreneurial-based culture,” the association said in a press release.

In a bid to get answers, ISPA has approached the Competition Commission and lodged an objection in this regard.

“If we are to continue fostering robust competition in South African telecoms, it doesn’t seem particularly smart to ISPA to allow the largest company in the mobile space to merge with the largest company in the FTTH and national long distance fibre space,” the association said.

Vodacom has not commented on this statement from ISPA, but we have asked it to and should the firm respond we will be sure to update this story.