The Cape’s big broadband plans
The Western Cape’s Medium Term Budget Policy Statement was unveiled by the province’s Economic Development MEC Alan Winde recently, saying that R240 million will be set aside for broadband connectivity in the medium term.
“We have already put in place a plan to ensure that the majority of citizens will have easy access to the low cost broadband,” said Winde.
“We intend to ensure public ICT access within a 2 km radius of every person living in our province by 2019, and universal broadband access by 2020.”
The latest details form part of the Connected Cape vision where “every citizen in every town and village has access to affordable high speed broadband infrastructure and services”.
The vision further aims to ensure that all citizens have the necessary skills to use broadband services to improve productivity and access to new markets.
According to the Western Cape provincial government the project goes “hand in glove with national government’s targets namely universal broadband access by 2020 and public ICT access within a 2 km radius of anyone by 2019”.
Alan Winde
More broadband pipe dreams in a different packaging?
The Western Cape’s broadband vision is commendable, but the question remains as to whether it will truly result in affordable broadband for all.
The Department of Communications (DoC) has been beating the broadband-for-all drum for years, but to date there is very little to show apart from a few talk shops and delayed policies.
The Western Cape has been an example for other provinces on the effectiveness of local government, but if the Stellenbosch free Wi-Fi project is anything to go by the future does not look bright.
According to a source close to the project the reason for the Stellenbosch free Wi-Fi project’s failure to date is simple – governmental bureaucracy and useless government officials.
What should have been a simple project, which is mainly funded by donors, has grown into a bureaucratic nightmare. Industry feedback suggests that the Stellenbosch municipality is showing the typical governmental malady of all talk no action.
Many commentators have dismissed the workability of large and free municipal broadband networks as utopian dreams, and a field which is best left to commercial broadband operators.
Unless the Western Cape can bypass the usual pitfalls of government involving itself in telecommunications, its Connected Cape vision may well go the same way as government’s broadband-for-all dreams.
The Stellenbosch municipality was asked about the problems with the free Wi-Fi project, the lack of a proper costing model and the alleged incompetence which led to problems, but despite a promise of feedback within 24 hours the municipality did not answer these questions.
The Democratic Alliance (DA), which is in power in both the Western Cape and in Stellenbosch, said that it could not provide feedback on the issue. The DA further said that they could not assist with the lack of feedback from the Stellenbosch Municipality.
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