Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub has stressed the need for spectrum allocation in SA, arguing that it is necessary for the digital evolution of the country. Speaking in an interview with MyBroadband, Joosub said government’s plan to enable the fourth industrial revolution in SA requires expediting the allocation of both 4G and 5G spectrum. The government was meant to release a policy directive on spectrum allocation in April 2019, but this was delayed ahead of the national elections. Now that the political campaigning is over, the telecommunications industry is once again waiting expectantly for progress to be made on spectrum allocation. Joosub said the launch of 5G services was not possible unless the required spectrum was made available. ‘Today what happens is you build a site, put load on the site, and if you run out of capacity, you add more radios. When you are finished with radios, the typical thing to do is to add more spectrum.’ However, if telecom companies do not have access to more spectrum, they are forced to build more sites and begin the whole process again.