SA plans ‘super cable links’
Explaining this at a media briefing on the results of the cabinet’s July lekgotla on Sunday, President Thabo Mbeki said that both will be built, but that no decision has yet been taken as to which will go first.
“There is a major junction in the UK which links to the US and the Far East,” he explained. “If you go that route you would be linked to the rest of the world by fibre optic. But there is a shorter route to Brazil and then to the US, which completes the circle.”
He said the cabinet lekgotla, which includes the ministers and deputy ministers, provincial premiers and directors-general of national departments and individual provinces, has decided that it is better to be ambitious, “to go for as big a project as we can get”.
The state is also looking as an extremely high capacity cable to cater for the country’s scientific initiatives, such as the bid to host the square kilometre array telescope.
The lekgotla expressed concerns at the continuing high costs of communications. “It is one item we have been grappling with for some time,” the president said. “It is seen as an obstacle to industry and society.”
The meeting considered a World Economic Forum Report, which praised South Africa’s ICT policies, but said the country needs to introduce more interventions especially in infrastructure investment and ICT usage.
It decided that the major focus over the next few months would be two-fold: expanded investment in infrastructure to increase the country’s national and international connectivity and reduce ICT costs, and implementation of the information and development plan, approved by cabinet earlier this year, to increase uptake and usage of ICT by government as a means of improving service delivery.
Access points for government services will be increased by using the massive post office infrastructure transforming the post offices themselves into multi purpose community centres.
Sentech will shortly roll out the core national wireless broadband network for government service delivery, especially for schools, health centres, government offices and the post offices.
Meanwhile the government’s new state-owned enterprise, Infraco, will lay a fibre optic cable linking economic centres of the country. One enhancement will focus on the Karoo Array telescope project and the Square Kilometre Array, another will link a fibre optic cable linking all the academic and health institutions in the country.
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