The cost of communication in South Africa is set to fall after Pretoria High Court ruled in favor of Altech last week, giving telecom companies the right to build their own networks.

South Africa has over 300 data and voice carriers that had previously been required to buy backbone infrastructure from the government-owned Telkom SA.

"This is no doubt the most important case in South Africa's telecom history," said William Stucke, chairman of the Africa Internet Service Providers Association (AfrISPA). "Unless overturned on appeal, it means a new era of low-cost, high-speed and high-redundancy Internet access in South Africa."

Minister of Communications Ivy Matsepe-Casabburi had given VAN (value-added network) licensees the right to build their own networks in 2004 but later backtracked on that decision, spurring Altech's legal action.

Altech's suit against Matsepe-Casabburi and the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) asserted that companies with existing VANs had the right to build their own networks, that Matsepe-Casabburi overstepped her powers by not allowing the company to build its own network, and that the entire process was flawed and in need of correction.

Since the ruling, ICASA has indicated that it will study the judgment and explore options for moving forward.

The ruling sets a precedent for other Southern African countries, including Zambia, that have yet to allow telecom companies to build their own networks. The Zambian government has said private operators should not be allowed to have their own gateways for security reasons.