Share

Getting SA properly connected

A recent trip with my immediate family to my mother’s home village, Guyuni (formerly Venda), in Limpopo, provided a stark illustration of South Africa’s failure to achieve universal access to information and communications technology (ICT) services.

There is no fixed telecommunications line in this village. There is, however, a semblance of mobile connectivity, but it’s not reliable and each time I (or my wife or four kids) needed an internet connection, or wanted to make a mobile banking transaction, I had to drive for about 30km.

As a member of the upper-middle class, I am able to undertake a 60km trip to access the internet, but unfortunately my mother and most of her fellow Guyuni residents don’t have this as an option.

Even where residents occasionally secure a mobile connection and access ICT services, the costs of such services are ridiculously high, particularly for households that rely mostly on social grants for a living.

Back in Johannesburg’s leafy suburbs where I live and work, one would have expected the mobile connectivity to be world class, but unfortunately that’s also not the case.

The quality of cellphone services in SA leaves much to be desired, yet the rates charged for some services are among the most expensive in the world.

Twenty one years from the inception of democracy, SA remains far from achieving universal access to telecommunications. Universal access policy in the country is characterised by three principles, as contained in the Telecommunications Act of 1996: availability (which requires national coverage of telecommunications services); accessibility (which demands that all users are treated alike, and that there is non-discrimination in relation to price, service quality irrespective of location, and race); and affordability (which requires that voice and data services should be priced so that most users can easily afford them).

The failure to achieve universal access to SA can be attributed to two factors: government’s commercial participation in the telecommunications market, and poor policy formulation and implementation.

The participation of government in the ICT market was bolstered through the Telecommunications Act, which gave Telkom exclusive rights to provide network infrastructure and fixed- line operations.

The government had assumed that Telkom would use its exclusive right to roll out ICT infrastructure nationally without worrying about competition. Unfortunately, Telkom did not do this and to date we are suffering the consequences of uncompetitive behaviour.

Governments seldom learn from past mistakes and our government thus established another parastatal, Broadband Infraco, to participate in the market.

Broadband Infraco has made very little progress in providing infrastructure to underserviced areas.

Moreover, in 2015, Telkom was given an exclusive mandate by government to roll out broadband infrastructure in eight district municipalities. I doubt if this project will be delivered on time and within budget.

In order to fast-track universal access, the government introduced a number of initiatives:

  • The Local Loop Unbundling scheme (LLU), to enable several operators to share the same connection from the same telephone exchange (the physical cable connection between the customer and operator is called the “local loop” and is owned by Telkom);
  • The Broadcasting Digital Migration scheme (BDM), to free up the broadcasting spectrum and to allow more players to enter the market by migrating SA’s broadcasting system from analogue to digital;
  • The Universal Service Agency (USA), to promote universal access to ICT services;
  • The Underserviced Area Licence (USAL), to accelerate the provision of ICT infrastructure in rural areas; and
  • The Thusong Services Centres (TSCs), to serve as one-stop centres for primarily rural communities to access development telecommunications and some government services.

The implementation of the above policies has not met with much success. The LLU, and USAL, failed dismally, while the implementation of other policies is excessively slow, very costly and fraught with managerial problems.

To turn the situation around, South African policymakers should look northwards.

SA can learn a great many lessons from the ICT policies of Kenya, Mauritius and Rwanda. These countries subscribed to the General Agreement on Trade Services, which triggered a move to liberalisation of the telecommunications market, and then pursued universal access policy according their own counsel.

Further research is required to unearth their experiences and document this.

The emerging lesson out of Africa seems to be that increased accessibility to telecommunications-related services is best achieved through competitive market forces and not through the government regulation and monopolies, or flip-flopping policies.

*Professor Rabelani Dagada is a policy fellow at the Institute of Race Relations.

This article originally appeared in the 28 April 2016 edition of finweek. Buy and download the magazine here

We live in a world where facts and fiction get blurred
Who we choose to trust can have a profound impact on our lives. Join thousands of devoted South Africans who look to News24 to bring them news they can trust every day. As we celebrate 25 years, become a News24 subscriber as we strive to keep you informed, inspired and empowered.
Join News24 today
heading
description
username
Show Comments ()
Rand - Dollar
18.89
+0.2%
Rand - Pound
23.84
+0.3%
Rand - Euro
20.38
+0.2%
Rand - Aus dollar
12.31
+0.2%
Rand - Yen
0.12
+0.2%
Platinum
908.05
0.0%
Palladium
1,014.94
0.0%
Gold
2,232.75
-0.0%
Silver
24.95
-0.1%
Brent Crude
87.00
+1.8%
Top 40
68,346
0.0%
All Share
74,536
0.0%
Resource 10
57,251
0.0%
Industrial 25
103,936
0.0%
Financial 15
16,502
0.0%
All JSE data delayed by at least 15 minutes Iress logo
Company Snapshot
Editorial feedback and complaints

Contact the public editor with feedback for our journalists, complaints, queries or suggestions about articles on News24.

LEARN MORE
Government tenders

Find public sector tender opportunities in South Africa here.

Government tenders
This portal provides access to information on all tenders made by all public sector organisations in all spheres of government.
Browse tenders