Speaking at the World Telecommunications and Information Society Day (WTID) in Soweto yesterday, Communications Minister Siphiwe Nyanda said that his focus this year is firmly on using ‘ICTs for accelerated service delivery and empowerment’.<\/p>\n
“During this financial year our focus will be on popularising the uptake and usage of ICT by communities and individuals in our underserviced and rural areas,” said Nyanda.<\/p>\n
According to Nyanda stakeholders have pledged to undertake a campaign targeting 50 thousand new internet users to obtain free email addresses across various networks. <\/p>\n
“I will encourage them to extend the target number because a majority of our people are indeed without e-mail addresses despite owning personal computers and mobile telephones,” said the Minister.<\/p>\n
Drop mobile telephony rates<\/strong><\/p>\n Nyanda said that while South Africa has achieved a high mobile telecommunication penetration of 996 per 1,000 inhabitants, the country’s fixed telephone penetration is very low. <\/p>\n “What we observed is that, our fixed telephony is still reasonably the most affordable telecommunication service in the world,” said Nyanda.<\/p>\n “We will also continue to work and engage with the private sector and communities to reduce the cost of mobile telephony in the course of this year.”<\/p>\n Internet access still expensive<\/strong><\/p>\n The Communications Minister said that the cost of Internet access is still not affordable to the majority of people in South Africa.<\/p>\n “We will not be able to persuade our people to participate in the digital networks, to enable them to conduct business and interact with their loved ones, conveniently through e-mails and other means such as voice over internet protocol (VOIP) if the cost to communicate is unaffordable to the majority of our people in this country,” said Nyanda.<\/p>\n Nyanda added that the majority of rural areas still lag behind in ICT infrastructure access.<\/p>\n “These challenges demand of us to institute strategies and investment to drive connectivity in schools, in the health centers and tele-centers, connecting business development centers in our towns and villages to improve the quality of the lives of our people,” said Nyanda.<\/p>\n