{"id":7768,"date":"2009-04-21T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T07:02:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2009-04-21T09:02:00","modified_gmt":"2009-04-21T07:02:00","slug":"internet-petition-calls-for-open-telecoms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadband\/7768-internet-petition-calls-for-open-telecoms.html","title":{"rendered":"Internet petition calls for open telecoms"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Online South Africans have been urged to electronically sign an Internet  petition calling for a more open telecoms market, to be handed to the incoming  administration.<\/p>\n<p>The petition calls for broadband to be recognised as an essential right, in  line with other basic infrastructure such as water, sewerage and  electricity.<\/p>\n<p>It can be signed at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.broadband4africa.org.za\/\" target=\"_blank\">www.broadband4africa.org.za<\/a> , the  site of the South African National Broadband Forum, a coalition of four civil  society groups: the Shuttleworth Foundation, SANGONeT, South Africa Connect and  the Association for Progressive Communications. <\/p>\n<p>The petition will be handed to whoever replaces the late Ivy  Matsepe-Casaburri as minister of communications at the first sitting of  Parliament following tomorrow&rsquo;s election.<\/p>\n<p>Steve Song, telecommunications fellow at The Shuttleworth Foundation, said  the past government&rsquo;s failure to liberalise the local telecoms industry hobbled  the South African economy.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Progress was marred by politics, cronyism and infighting, which stifled  competition at the cost of the consumer,&rdquo; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;As we deal with a new government, we see the opportunity to mobilise public  opinion to communicate that broadband is a critical requirement for South  Africa&rsquo;s development,&rdquo; Song said.<\/p>\n<p>The South African National Broadband Forum wants affordable broadband access  in every town and village by 2014, to claim its place as number one in terms of  broadband penetration on the continent.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/vb\/showthread.php?t=168472\">Broadband strategy<\/a><\/strong> &#8211; what should be included?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Online South Africans have been urged to sign an Internet petition calling for a more open telecoms market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"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_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-broadband"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7768"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}