What is affordable broadband?
The Department of Communications (DoC) recently released its ‘Draft Broadband Policy for South Africa’. This policy aims to facilitate the provisioning of affordable access to broadband infrastructure to citizens, business and government and to also stimulate the usage of broadband services at national, provincial and municipal levels.
Key to this policy is defining what broadband is. Without a clear definition of what the term ‘broadband’ covers, role-players involved in any project related to this policy will not have guidelines outlining the services they will provide to users or organizations.
What is broadband?
The DoC defines broadband as an ‘always available, multimedia capable connection’. It looks like the Communications Department tried to avoid stipulating a minimum downlink speed associated with a broadband service, but this vague definition may cause problems in future.
The term ‘multimedia capable’ has very little to do with speed, and since dial-up and GPRS connections are capable of transmitting text, graphics, sound and video they may be seen as an ‘always available, multimedia capable connection’.
A far better definition for ‘broadband’ would be to use the International Telecommunications Union’s (ITU) definition that broadband is a “transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) at 1.5 or 2.0 Megabits per second (Mbits)”. The DoC mentioned this definition in their policy document, but seems reluctant to commit to defined values.
Another aspect of a broadband service which is not addressed adequately in the Draft Broadband Policy is the monthly usage limit (cap) which is typically associated with broadband offerings in South Africa. Unless there is an adequate monthly usage limit the service will be crippled and will not have the same effect as broadband services seen internationally.
As far back as 2005 Dr. Tim Kelly from the ITU suggested a monthly usage limit of 30 GB per month, an offering which sadly is still not commonplace in South Africa today.
What is affordable?
The DoC also did not clearly define the term ‘affordable’. While some people think affordability should be defined as a percentage of GDP per Capita, others think that a distinct value (like R 200) should be laid down. The DoC completely evaded the question as to what affordable means which leaves the term open to interpretation.
According to the SANBF affordability is difficult to define and any ongoing strategy would require a continual assessment of what is affordable for the majority of people according to a basic set of access needs. “Once this basket of essential services are determined, ‘breadline’ broadband pricing can be calculated, which might be tiered for sectors and communities,” the SANBF says.
As the income of a person or family typically dictates the affordability of an item, a percentage of GDP per Capita may be the best way to define affordability of a broadband service in a specific country. Dr. Tim Kelly from the ITU said in 2005 that an internationally acceptable measure is for broadband to cost 1% of the average income per capita for a 1Mbps service.
According to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the CIA World Factbook South Africa has a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) per capita of around $ 10 000. Should the cost of an affordable broadband service be defined as 2% of GDP per capita, it means that the cost should be R 124.00 per month (at 1 USD = 7.42 ZAR).
Clear and strict definition needed
The problem of not strictly defining what a broadband service is, what the minimum monthly usage limit should be and what it should cost is that it can easily be argued that South Africa has numerous ‘affordable broadband services’.
iBurst’s R 49.00 per month offering for a 1 Mbps service satisfies both the monthly cost and speed criteria set by Kelly from the ITU, but the 40 MB monthly cap leaves a lot to be desired in terms of ‘usage’. On the other end there are numerous high-end 4 Mbps ADSL offerings in the market, but at a few thousand rand per month it can hardly qualify as ‘affordable’.
The DoC may therefore be well advised to clearly define ‘affordable broadband’ in terms of speed, monthly usage limits and price. Unless this is done the whole policy could be summed up in the sentence “all people must have access to an Internet connection at a certain price” – something which is already the case through the extensive cellular coverage in the country.
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