JOHANNESBURG (WiMAX Day). Vodacom, the leading GSM operator in South Africa, sees WiMAX as necessary for its future growth and product offering, but it lacks a license that will enable it to offer services. In a statement issued to journalists on Friday, Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig acknowledged market rumours that Vodacom would acquire a stake in iBurst, one of four WiMAX license holders in South Africa. “We don’t have a WiMAX licence and I don’t want to wait anymore,” Knott-Craig told reporters. iBurst, through its subsidiary WBS, was issued a license for 2.6 GHz spectrum in South Africa, and has a reported 30,000 subscribers. Vodacom is owned by fixed-line operator Telkom SA and Vodafone Group. Vodacom offers GSM services to more than 21.5 million customers in South Africa, Tanzania, Congo and Lesotho. If the acquisition goes through, it would put Telkom and Vodacom in majority control of the broadband market in South Africa where Telkom is the leading provider of DSL services.