DoC’s telecoms cost benchmarking
The Department of Communications (DoC) recently selected Brazil, Chile, India, Malaysia, South Korea as part of their programme of action to benchmark telecommunications costs, quality, availability, accessibility and usage in South Africa.
The DoC said that the development of a Programme of Action to benchmark telecommunications costs in relation to comparable countries would ultimately utilize ‘the successful areas as a model for a universally successful South African system.’
Local broadband services
South Africa currently has around 1 Million broadband connections, made up of mainly Telkom’s ADSL service and Vodacom & MTN’s HSDPA offerings. This translates into a broadband penetration rate of around 2%.
The highest speed broadband service in South Africa is Telkom’s 4 Mbps ADSL service while local broadband subscribers typically have monthly usage limits ranging between 1 GB and 3 GB per month. On the wireless front HSDPA subscribers enjoy speeds of up to 3.6 Mbps while iBurst and MyWireless subscribers have maximum downlink speeds of 1 Mbps.
The majority of South Africa’s broadband connections are wireless, with Vodacom leading the way with over 350 000 connections.
International broadband figures
When it comes to broadband South Korea is a world leader and far ahead of most developing and even developed nations.
The other countries, which the DoC selected to benchmark South Africa’s telecoms services against, range significantly in both broadband services and Internet usage.
The following tables give a basic broadband comparison between South Africa and the other countries in the DoC’s basket.
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Basic Internet Stats
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Country
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Internet Users
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Internet Penetration
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Broadband Users
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Broadband Penetration
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| South Korea | 34120000 | 70.8% | 2322577 | 30.7% |
| Brazil | 42600000 | 22.9% | 8100000 | 4% |
| Malaysia | 13528200 | 47.8% | 1100000 | 0.4% |
| Chile | 4156000 | 25% | 1323446 | 8.8% |
| India | 97540000 | 7.5% | 3240000 | 0.29% |
| South Africa | 5100000 | 10.7% | 950000 | 1.9% |
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Basic High End Broadband Service
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Country
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Speed
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Usage Limit
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Price (ZAR)
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Cost/Mbps/GB |
| South Korea | 100 Mbps | Unlimited | 320.00 | 0.03 |
| Brazil | 4 Mbps | 50 GB | 843.00 | 4.22 |
| Malaysia | 4 Mbps | Unlimited | 679.00 | 1.70 |
| Chile | 10 Mbps | Unlimited | 644.00 | 0.64 |
| India | 2 Mbps | 20 GB | 658.00 | 16.45 |
| South Africa | 4 Mbps | 3 GB | 665.90 | 55.50 |
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