{"id":548439,"date":"2006-04-05T06:46:25","date_gmt":"2006-04-05T06:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wordpress\/technology\/548439-state-backing-for-broadband-as-development-tool.html"},"modified":"2006-04-05T06:46:25","modified_gmt":"2006-04-05T06:46:25","slug":"state-backing-for-broadband-as-development-tool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/548439-state-backing-for-broadband-as-development-tool.html","title":{"rendered":"State backing for broadband as development tool"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font size=\"2\">The department&#8217;s director-general, Lyndall Shope-Mafole, said she wanted to ensure &quot;that SA had the capacity to advance its socioeconomic development and improve the wellbeing of the population&quot;. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">She said the department wanted to maximise investment in and through the information communication technologies (ICT) sector. The department had given priority to investments in broadband infrastructure, she said. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">The competitiveness of the SA economy could be increased by ensuring that its ICT infrastructure and services were available, reliable and affordable, Shope-Mafole said. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">She listed some of the strategic objectives of her department: <\/font><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><font size=\"2\">Accelerate the use of ICT as a tool in all spheres of government delivery of socioeconomic development;<\/font> <\/li>\n<li><font size=\"2\">Facilitate the development and improve the sustainability of small businesses in the ICT and other sectors;<\/font> <\/li>\n<li><font size=\"2\">Contribute to national safety and security through ICT; and<\/font> <\/li>\n<li><font size=\"2\">Facilitate access to ICT by women, people with disabilities, youngsters and children.<\/font> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><font size=\"2\">The government has identified ICT as one of the key factors in stimulating economic growth in line with the accelerated and shared growth initiative of South Africa (Asgisa). <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">A broadband Internet connection might be considered a luxury by the many people who still lack access to basic amenities such as clean drinking water and electricity. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Broadband is a transmission technology capable of supporting a wide range of frequencies, from audio up to video, and it allows cheaper and faster access to the Internet. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka recently said the government acknowledged that one of the biggest barriers to achieving SA&#8217;s investment goals was the cost of telecommunications. It is to lower this cost that the government wants to deregulate the sector and license a second national fixed-line operator that would compete with Telkom. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Mlambo-Ngcuka said ICT could help accelerate SA&#8217;s growth and that it was probably the only sector that could link the first and second economies sustainably. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">Dean Suchard, an executive at Internet Solutions, said broadband was the technology of the future because, unlike a dial-up Internet connection, it was always connected. He said broadband enabled small business to do what had been the preserve of big corporates. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">&quot;Broadband is reliable and enables SMMEs to do much more e-commerce. They will be able to sell more online, have a better e-mail experience and lower their monthly phone bill by using the Voice Over Internet Protocol,&quot; said Suchard. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\">He said Telkom should drop its infrastructure costs. It charges between R270 and R680 for 1 Mbyte per second connectivity. <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font size=\"2\"><em>INet-Bridge ||<\/em>\u00a0 <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php?t=40753\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><font size=\"2\">Discuss this article<\/font><\/a><font size=\"2\"> <\/font><\/p>\n<p><em><font size=\"2\"><\/font><\/em><\/p>\n<p \/>\n<p \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Communication on Friday unveiled its 2006-09 strategic plan in which the development and implementation of a broadband strategy is given top priority. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}