On 12 - 18 May 2024, Professor Luzango Mfupe undertook a successful fact-finding and study tour mission to South Korea to participate in a series of high-level engagements, including meetings, capacity-building sessions and live demonstrations of wireless technology with officials from the national regulator, research institutes and industry stakeholders.

The primary objective of the trip was to gain insight into best practices that will support the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) in formulating Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) regulations beyond TV White Spaces (in the S and C bands). Specifically, the focus was on understanding regulatory sandboxes in spectrum management. The CSIR has signed a multi-year RD&I contract to support ICASA in developing a regulatory framework to enable dynamic spectrum sharing in the sub-bands 3.8 to 4.2 GHz and the lower 6 GHz.

Highlighting the importance of the mission, Mfupe says, "CSIR’s significant involvement in supporting ICASA to extend spectrum sharing regulations beyond TV White Spaces and developing complementary technology toolboxes underscores our role in empowering local industries, particularly new entrants and SMMEs. This effort helps to effectively participate in the digital economy, reduce communication costs, and create job opportunities."

He has managed to have meetings and engagements with officials of the following organisations:

The agenda of the meeting held with South Korea Telcom (SKT) and Contela was to learn and explore best practices from Korea’s largest telecoms provider, SKT on topics such as information and communication technology (ICT) ecosystem convergence, deployment of affordable 5G and beyond networks, etc.

In addition, discussions were held about exploring collaboration opportunities in telecoms equipment co-design, localisation and possible manufacturing in South Africa. This led to a mutual intention to sign a collaborative Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with Contela, a subsidiary of SKT dealing with ICT equipment manufacturing and ICT solution development.

The agenda with the National IP Promotion Agency (NIPA) was to learn best practices for implementing a South Korean national regulatory sandbox framework to support innovative small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in rapidly deploying new wireless technologies in a converged ICT environment.

Likewise, the agenda with the National Radio Research Agency (RRA) also included learning best practices on spectrum sharing and management of automated spectrum databases, the formulation of technical regulations and equipment conformity assessment.

However, the agenda with the original equipment manufacturer, INNONET Ltd., was to perform a live technology demonstration of the TVWS/LTE/5G and drone technologies in the field implementation of a sandbox for the deployment of wireless network infrastructure to facilitate the construction of underground tunnels. Discussion of localisation and manufacturing of the Television Whitespace (TVWS) equipment in South Africa.

The fact-finding and study tour mission was secured under the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) project and the ration for the trip was supported by Dr Ndumiso Cingo of CSIR Strategic Partnership, the Department of Science and Innovation (DSI) Bilateral Relations Office, as well as the Department of International Relations and Cooperative (DIRCO) through the South African Embassy in South Korea.