Recently Business Day reported on ANC Communications chief, Nkenke Kekana’s views on the policy for satellite broadband. It is a story of procedures and channels followed (or not), but also of the trade-offs that come with policy changes.

At the heart of it is the policy directive which communication & digital technologies minister Solly Malatsi gazetted the previous week. It will open the way for equity-equivalent investment programmes to replace BBBEE for multinationals entering the satellite service space. It is about procedure, an Icasa study and the role of cabinet, but the piece has some choice quotes that shows a particular way of thinking.

“In other words… current licensees need to be protected from new entrants. We need to take into consideration their interests, the interests of the consumer, the interests of businesses that are running on these networks,” Kekana told Business Day.

“We must ensure that there is fairness in the way that we treat people … You can’t have licence conditions that are for some first-tier operators and not for the others. Before we can even talk about amending a law, there must be an economic assessment. That is what is under way now,” he said.

You might say, yes!, this exactly the kind of thinking that limits competition and creative destruction. Why don’t we just lower the barriers to entry and level the playing field for everyone? But that does not mean that there won’t be a cost to incumbents.

The role of a National Dialogue is to figure out what we are willing to give up. We can get cheaper satellite broadband in remote rural areas, but may have to sacrifice some jobs and profits at current operators. We can do studies, listen to the lobbies on both sides, try to figure out what will benefit long-run growth. But it is also about making a choice about our development model. Are we trying to protect what we have, or are we willing to free up the market forces and let them work?