Top ICT tenders: ICASA plans TV subscription inquiry

It’s another bumper week on National Treasury’s eTenders Portal, with almost 700 new opportunities advertised. The ICT sector, however, will have to be content with looking to a handful of public sector organisations for this week’s most interesting tenders.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) takes the headline with the news it is looking for a service provider to assist it in conducting an inquiry into the effective competitiveness of television subscription broadcasting services.

The initiative is the latest in an almost decade-long focus on the state of competition in subscription television broadcasting services. The initial inquiry, announced in 2016, noted that despite the authority having issued five subscription broadcasting service licences in 2007 and a further two licences in 2015, only three licensees were operational.

That inquiry sought to establish factors that contributed to new subscription broadcasting licensees’ inability to successfully launch their services and attract a fair number of new subscribers.

Following public hearings in 2021, ICASA noted there were rapidly-changing market developments that will have an impact on the final findings, and therefore, it resolved to continue the consultation process.

“This continuation builds upon and will update and refine the work undertaken in the consultation process by the authority during the 2021-22 financial year…The continuation is to assess the state of competition and determine whether or not there are markets or market segments within the subscription broadcasting services value chain that may warrant regulation in the context of a market review in terms of section 67(4) of the ECA,” it says.

ICASA notes it published a supplementary discussion document on the matter in the Government Gazette on 6 January 2025. The successful bidder will build on the existing work done and assist the regulator in conducting the inquiry.

This will include reviewing the conclusions drawn from such evidence on the market definition; assessment of competition in the defined markets; and, proposed remedies on the identified market failures, as contained in the draft findings document, if any.

Other tenders that make this week’s top 10:

• ICASA wishes to appoint a service provider for the procurement of an automated and integrated risk and compliance management system, as well as a five-year maintenance and support agreement. The regulator reveals its current risk and compliance system contract ended in March 2020.
• Finally, ICASA is calling for the supply, installation and commissioning of quality of service benchmarking equipment to test network performance and monitor the quality of the various mobile network operators’ voice, data, video and messaging services. The required equipment includes drive-test equipment, walk-test/portable equipment in backpacks, multi-vendor post-processing tool and scanners.

• The State Information Technology Agency (SITA) is inviting bids for the procurement of Kofax scanning software licences, professional services, and maintenance and support for the Department of Defence’s South African Military Health Service (SAMHS). The agency reveals SAMHS bought 6.3 million Kofax volume licences – which is the number of pages that can be scanned within one year. However, no maintenance or support is available on the product.

• The agency also wishes to appoint a service provider for the disposal of one of its customer’s network infrastructure assets. Disposal of these assets will assure accurate and proper insurance values are calculated accordingly and only relate to valuable customer assets, SITA says. This initiative will also contribute to putting the customer in a better position with regards to compliance to Occupational Health and Safety Standards.

• Eskom is advertising for SharePoint modernisation. The scope of work includes the migration of the content and configuration of SharePoint 2010 and 2016 sites to SharePoint online, excluding deprecated features; and the rebuild of existing workflows and forms on Power Apps and Power Automate. The utility notes only actively used forms and workflows will be rebuilt.

• The utility also requires an IT hardware asset tracking and recovery tool, including licences, support and maintenance. The company notes the inherent mobility of endpoint devices increases their susceptibility to theft and loss, posing a critical risk to the organisation, as these often have access to key company resources and sensitive information. It notes it currently operates approximately 36 000 endpoints, including laptops and desktops, all running Windows operating systems.

• In its final notice for the issue, Eskom is inviting proposals for the procurement, implementation and support of enterprise geospatial software (eGIS) software technology to replace the enterprise geospatial platform and portal, desktop GIS and a specialised remote sensing imagery tool for Eskom Holdings. The company notes the Eskom business and its subsidiary requires an enterprise-wide geo-enabled viewing and analysis solution to improve and support its business processes and information. Several business processes need to be supported with the relevant desktop GIS, web map and enterprise GIS platform/portal functionality, in line with their unique business requirements and process definitions.

• The National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) wishes to appoint a service provider to supply a fully managed SD-WAN solution. The NHLS has a network of approximately 246 laboratories across the country that services all the public sector facilities and two data centres which support its IT services. The organisation notes that with an increasing number of applications being served from the head-office data centre, there is greater emphasis on the performance and reliability of the MPLS network.

• The NHLS closes the issue with a request for a service provider to develop, implement and maintain a business continuity plan and disaster recovery plan. Upon appointment, the service says the successful service provider will be expected to deliver a comprehensive business continuity management system (BCMS) that outlines BCM policy, recovery strategies, communication protocols, resource allocation, and contingency plans following a BCM risk assessment. The BCMS must ensure NHLS has resilient business continuity capabilities.

Independent Communications Authority of South Africa

The regulator wishes to appoint a service provider for risk and compliance management systems with a maintenance and support agreement for five years on an 80/20 PPPFA 2000, Preferential Procurement Regulation: 2022.

Compulsory briefing: 30 September – Microsoft Teams, Link
Tender no: ICASA 09-2025
Information: Bid Administration Office, Tel: 012 568 3139, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 10 October 2025

­­Tags: Software, risk and compliance, GRC software, services, support and maintenance

A service provider is also sought to assist ICASA in conducting an inquiry into television subscription broadcasting services for 12 months on an 80/20 PPPFA 2000, Preferential Procurement Regulation: 2022.

Non-compulsory briefing: 26 September – Microsoft Teams, Link
Tender no: ICASA 32-2025
Information: Bid Administration Office, Tel: 012 568 3139, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 8 October 2025

­­Tags: Broadcasting, services, professional services, consulting, research and analysis

Finally, ICASA is calling for the supply, installation and commissioning of quality of service benchmarking equipment to test the network’s performance and monitor quality of the mobile network operator’s voice, data, video, messaging services with support and maintenance for three years on an 80/20 PPPFA 2000, Preferential Procurement Regulation: 2022.

Non-compulsory briefing: 19 September – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: ICASA 30-2025
Information: Bid Administration Office, Tel: 012 568 3139, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 30 September 2025

­­Tags: Telecommunications, hardware, software, quality of service, cellular networks, mobile networks, voice, data, video, messaging services, support and maintenance

State Information Technology Agency

Bids are invited for the procurement of Kofax scanning software licences, professional services, maintenance and support of the Kofax product for the Department of Defence South African Military Health Service for three years.

Compulsory briefing: 19 September – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: RFB 3144/2025
Information: Nokwanda Wasa, Tel: 012 482 3004, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 6 October 2025

­­Tags: Software, imaging, scanning, services, professional services, support and maintenance

The agency also wishes to appoint a service provider for the disposal of the customer’s network infrastructure assets.

Compulsory briefing: 17 September – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: RFB 3146/2025
Information: Elelwani Mundalamo, Tel: 012 367 3995, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 6 October 2025

­­Tags: Hardware, disposals, networking

Eskom

The utility is advertising for SharePoint modernisation for 30 months.

Non-compulsory briefing: 25 September – Microsoft Team
Tender no: E1826CXMWP
Information: Wendy Nduneni, Tel:011 800 4824, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 24 October 2025

­­Tags: Software, software development, services, software services

Eskom also requires an IT hardware asset tracking and recovery tool, including licences, support and maintenance for five years.

Non-compulsory briefing: 16 September – Microsoft Teams
Tender no: E1681CXMWP
Information: Violet Beetha, Tel:011 800 3012, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 8 October 2025

­­Tags: Hardware, software, asset tracking, services, support and maintenance, licensing

Proposals are invited for the procurement, implementation and support of eGIS software technology to replace the enterprise geospatial platform and portal, desktop GIS and a specialised remote sensing imagery tool for Eskom, inclusive of all divisions and current and future subsidiaries, where the implementation includes the configuration of GIS solutions as specified in the BRS for seven years.

Tender no: E1823CXMWP
Information: Tamara Mda, Tel:011 800 3599, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 10 October 2025

­­Tags: Software, geospatial information software, GIS, services, support and maintenance

National Health Laboratory Service

The organisation wishes to appoint a service provider to supply a fully-managed SD-WAN solution for five years.

Compulsory briefing:19 September
Tender no: RFB054/25/26
Information: Phillip Serage, Tel: 064 880 5687, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 10 October 2025

­­Tags: Software, hardware, networking, SD-WAN, software-defined wide area network

The NHLS is also looking for a service provider to develop, implement and maintain a business continuity plan and disaster recovery plan for three years.

Compulsory briefing: 19 September
Tender no: RFB017/25/26
Information: Andisiwe Maxongo, Tel: 011 555 0580, E-mail: [email protected]
Closing date: 13 October 2025

­­Tags: Software, hardware, services, business continuity, disaster recovery, professional services

Source: https://www.itweb.co.za/article/top-ict-tenders-icasa-plans-tv-subscription-inquiry/DZQ58MV81L8vzXy2

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