Sky’s the limit for growth in internet industry
The prospect of a new government offers fresh hope for the telecommunications sector by ushering out a decade of failed and damaging policies.
Much of the population still could not access telecoms services at affordable prices and the internet remains entirely elusive for them, according to research house World Wide Works.
The policy of managed liberalisation championed by Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe Casaburri was deeply flawed, but it was a policy supported by the cabinet, said World Wide Worx MD Arthur Goldstuck.
“Nothing that has been done in the past decade has increased access for the ‘have-nots’. The new cabinet has the opportunity to make telecommunications more inclusive and bring it to the have nots,” he said.
The minister’s highly restrictive regulations had slowed the growth of internet access to a near standstill, and made the possibility of taking affordable services to remote areas ever more unlikely, Goldstuck said. The cellular operators had managed to reach most areas, but the poorest people still paid the highest call rates, he said.
Fresh research by World Wide Worx shows that internet access is rising rapidly again after being stifled by anticompetitive conditions designed to protect the incumbents. There are 603 internet service providers in SA, and about 400 of them have recently been granted high court permission to build their own network infrastructure. The licence granting them that freedom will change the telecoms landscape.
“We are going into a wild west era of internet connectivity in SA,” Goldstuck said. Change would also be triggered by the Seacom undersea cable going live in June, delivering huge volumes of international bandwidth.
In total 4,5-million people now have internet access in SA, up 12,5% from last year. That was the first time since 2001 that the market had seen double-digit growth, and a spurt of 13,5% is predicted for next year. About 8,4-million South Africans should have internet access by 2013, with the dramatic growth triggered by falling prices as managed liberalisation is swept away and more providers are able to offer more services.
Yet that would still not benefit the masses, Goldstuck said.
“Efforts to bring them on board are not really working and that needs to be addressed seriously by the government and private enterprises.” Internet usage was linked to computer literacy, yet that was not taught in a comprehensive way in schools, and was largely left to the social responsibility efforts of technology companies, often with no sustainable effect.
About 1-million people had broadband internet access, up a healthy 56% from a year ago. More people were able to access the internet using wireless technologies than by using Telkom’s fixed line services, although many of them used wireless as a back-up to their fixed line. That would change next year to see wireless become the main means of internet access for most people, Goldstuck said.
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