Whilst the halcyon days of high growth in voice services subscribers and revenues are clearly a thing of the past, operators are still reporting reasonably healthy results. The big question now is what will happen to the mainstay of voice revenues, as data revenue growth begins to slow down, and margins continue to be squeezed. Margins on mobile data are already significantly lower than those of voice and SMS, and also put a high demand on network capacity and hence capex for expansion.

South Africa's two largest mobile operators have been most vocal to date, prompting a debate in Parliament about whether OTT services should be regulated.  The view stated is that similar services should be treated equally, and the OTT players are starting to play in the highly regulated voice market, in so doing encroaching on traditional voice players' revenue streams while using these same mobile operators' data networks for connectivity; however, they are not subject to the same consumer protection regulation, emergency calling, interception and monitoring, and such like.

Net neutrality remains the subject of significant debate globally, with equally strong views expressed on both sides. Conversely, in South Africa to date the two largest mobile operators, Vodacom and MTN, have vocalised their concerns about the threat of OTTs to their business, prompting a debate in Parliament about whether OTT services should be regulated.

One of the luxuries enjoyed by South Africa's two largest mobile operators is having money to invest, which in turn stems from the super high profit margins they have been able to command over a period spanning two decades. This has allowed them to invest heavily in their networks, and in so doing keep raising the bar for smaller competitors.

Two opposite but related trends are playing out in the African continent: telcos moving into financial services and banks becoming telecoms service providers. BMI-T notes that the latter is the more prominent trend in South Africa, typified by First National Bank, through FNB Connect, launching a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) in 2015, after being a leading innovator in the distribution of mobile devices and internet capacity to its banking customers - in so doing advancing rapidly to 'significant player' status in these telecoms domains.