Slowest Home Affairs branch in South Africa

The Department of Home Affairs (DHA) has revealed that it has an office still using a 64kbps copper Internet connection.

DHA spokesperson Duwayne Esau shared this detail with MyBroadband in a recent response to questions about the state of the department’s broadband connectivity and how this was impeding its ability to provide services.

The office in question is in the rural village of Ulundi in KwaZulu-Natal, best known as the former capital of the Zulu Kingdom.

The 64kbps speed is just 8kbps faster than the top speed of dial-up Internet, which was the first widely available fixed broadband in South Africa in the late 1990s.

In addition, 64kbps is half the speed of the slowest DSL connections launched in South Africa in the early 2000s.

It would take some stretch of imagination to believe that this speed would be sufficient to achieve Home Affairs minister Leon Schreiber’s five-year strategic vision for the department to become fully automated, digitised, and available online.

“Clients in need of routine civic services, such as obtaining or replacing an ID, passport or certificate, must be able to apply online through a secure platform linked to their unique biometrics,” Schreiber explained.

“The application will then be processed through an automated risk engine that only requires human intervention in cases where anomalies are detected.”

“All other cases will be processed automatically, digitally and securely.”

“Once an application is complete, the resultant ID, passport or other enabling document must be shipped directly to the door of the client, regardless of whether they live in South Africa or abroad.”

“Over time, these vital documents will also be made available in digital format on the client’s secure online profile — and in the wallet app on their phone.”

Schreiber believes that slow and unreliable Internet connectivity at DHA branches are to blame for many “system offline” issues.

He bemoaned the fact that some DHA branches were still using 2Mbps connections.

While this is over 30 times faster than the 64kbps connection in Ulundi, it is slower than entry-level home fibre and fixed-LTE packages.

Stopping the blame game

The department has previously complained about its reliance on the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) for procuring IT products and services, with former minister Aaron Motsoaledi blaming the entity for its connectivity problems.

SITA promptly hit back and said that the department had opted to take its cheapest Internet package, which provided 2Mbps copper connections with a turnaround time of 16 hours for repairs.

Esau again highlighted that the department could not procure any IT services, limiting its ability to improve the connectivity situation directly.

However, he also acknowledged that some of the DHA’s own technical capacity was to blame for its shortcomings.

“The Department is working on resolving both of these areas,” Esau said. “A digitally transformed Home Affairs requires consistently reliable and fast Internet to function optimally.”

Esau told MyBroadband that most of the DHA’s branches still used Diginet Internet, a higher-end version of copper-based Internet with lower contention.

That should offer better performance than home DSL. However, the vast majority of Home Affairs branches still have single-digit Internet speeds.

Esau said that only 31 of the DHA’s 323 branches — less than 10% — had been upgraded to 10Mbps or faster speeds.

“This is the Internet speed that will be required for us to be able to provide services to citizens and visitors from their homes,” Esau said.

This is the speed some fibre network operators offer on entry-level packages in lower-income areas.

Although much slower than the speeds one might expect for a government department that relies on connectivity, the upgrades should bring a major improvement at branches with 64kbps and 2Mbps speeds.

Esau also revealed that 204 of the 323 branches had been modernised with live-capture systems, required to issue smart ID cards.

The DHA is several years behind on its plan to fully replace all green ID books, which have become a big target for fraudsters due to outdated security features.

Modernising its systems and branch network to allow all South African citizens and permanent residents to obtain a smart ID card is crucial to resolving this problem.