- The Communications Minister outlined that the government is looking to connect an additional 5.5 million South African households to the internet over the next three to four years.
- Although he praised the government’s recent efforts in improving connectivity, he forgot to mention the private sector’s contribution.
- The government also recently approved a new policy on frequency allocation.
During Tuesday’s controversial State of the Union Address (SONA) joint debate, Communications Minister Mondli Gungubele said the government will connect an additional 1.5 million households to the internet via WiFi hotspots by December 2024, and by December 2024. It said it plans to connect an additional 747,000 households to the Internet by April. End of fiscal year.
The minister said the government has so far connected 361,000 households across the country to 2,502 WiFi hotspots in a project involving 76 small domestic internet service providers (ISPs). The minister claims that in the government’s connectivity plan for the end of the year, he expects to hire 4,500 people.
Citing statistics reported in the 2023 Census, the minister said 79 per cent of South African households now have access to the internet, compared to just 21.1 per cent in 2011. and praised the significant improvement. This does not reflect official data recorded in the census.
The data shows that in 2011, 64.8 per cent of South African households did not have access to the internet. This means that 35.2 percent of households had access to the internet, rather than 21.1 percent as the Minister says.
Furthermore, the Minister’s comment that the significant improvement in internet usage across the country is due to work being undertaken through the government-run SA Connect broadband connectivity project is misleading. The minister does not take into account the work that South Africa’s private sector companies, including telecommunications companies such as MTN and Vodacom, are doing to improve connectivity.
This is particularly important because, according to the census, the majority of South Africans with access to the internet do so through a mobile phone (60.5 percent in 2023).
In fact, it is partly thanks to these companies that South Africans are able to use the internet during downtime. MTN invested R5 billion last year to improve the resilience of its network in the face of government load-shedding, ensuring mobile towers can communicate and users can stay online during power outages. revealed.
Gungubele told the debate that the government aims to connect an additional 5.5 million households to the internet via WiFi hotspots over the next three to four years.
“Through collaboration with the private sector, all eight metros have so far been connected to fiber optic, and we are expanding to more towns. As part of the implementation of the recommendations, we have undertaken several digital infrastructure projects to ensure transformation through access in a changing world,” the Minister explained.
One of these projects is the Next Generation Spectrum Policy for Economic Development, which was approved by the Cabinet in November 2023.
According to SA News, the policy is aimed at supporting spectrum allocation and licensing for fixed mobile, broadcast, air and maritime, research and development, community access and other industries.
It also aims to promote fair distribution to contribute to the transformation of the sector. Some major players have described the 2022 ICACA spectrum auction, which has raised R14 billion from the private sector, as too long and too bureaucratic a process, with negative implications for the entire local telecommunications industry pending further developments. slandered him. 5G connectivity across the country while other countries are beating us.
[Image – Photo by Leon Seibert on Unsplash]
