Mothibi Ramusi, chairperson of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), told delegates at Conext 2026 in Johannesburg this week that not every new technology or business model demands the same regulatory response. Effective oversight, he argued, depends as much on restraint as on intervention.
The toolkit he described is deliberately varied. In some cases, ICASA will continue to issue licenses. In others, the Authority may facilitate spectrum-sharing experiments through regulatory sandboxes, an approach it has already applied to dynamic spectrum access, or adopt a lighter-touch stance that lets innovation develop within clearly defined safeguards.
“The future regulator, which we are currently building, must have a broader regulatory toolkit, importantly, as ICASA we must know which instruments to use, when to use them, and when not to regulate,” Ramusi told attendees.
His remarks placed the regulator’s delivery role at the center of the debate. Technology, he said, is creating new possibilities for shaping infrastructure and spectrum, and the Authority’s task is to make sure innovation can enter South African markets inside a framework that protects competition, manages spectrum effectively and advances the national interest.
One concrete piece of that agenda is a draft satellite licensing framework. Ramusi said the Authority has developed it to position South Africa to capture opportunities emerging across the satellite market and the broader space economy.
Satellite licensing, however, is only part of the infrastructure picture. Ramusi pointed to data centers and cloud computing as a second area demanding regulatory attention, noting that the Authority has heard a great deal on the subject. “The global expansion of cloud computing and AI are fundamentally changing infrastructure requirements,” he said.
That shift changes what networks must actually deliver. Connections are no longer only between people; they now link people to computing resources and machines to machines. “The question is, is the Authority ready to embrace this new change?” he asked delegates, adding that South Africa should aspire to strengthen its position as an important digital infrastructure hub for the African continent.
Meanwhile, that ambition found an echo at political level. South Africa’s Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies, Solly Malatsi, expressed a similar sentiment when he spoke at the 2026 GovTech conference in Durban last month, signaling alignment between the regulator’s operational plans and the government’s broader digital infrastructure goals.
For an audience watching whether these plans translate into working frameworks, licenses and sandbox experiments, Ramusi’s message was that the measure of a modern regulator lies in knowing which instrument to pick up, and when to put the toolkit down. Whether the draft satellite framework and the sandbox approach move from paper to practice will be the test. Further detail on the remarks is available at https://www.connectingafrica.com/regulation/regulators-must-know-when-not-to-regulate-icasa-chairperson.