Subscribe

Cape Town in R1.3bn fibre push

Tyson Ngubeni
By Tyson Ngubeni
Johannesburg, 21 Jul 2014
Neotel and SITA have agreed to operate the Western Cape government's network across 2 000 sites.
Neotel and SITA have agreed to operate the Western Cape government's network across 2 000 sites.

The City of Cape Town has set aside R1.3 billion to build a fibre-optic network for enhanced connectivity and fostering an environment for the provision of e-governance services.

According to the Democratic Alliance's shadow deputy minister of public enterprises, Erik Marais, the project will take place over the next five to seven years and will make the city "the most digitally connected in Africa". He says the improved communication links were important to service delivery objectives.

In the city's economic growth strategy, it outlines plans to provide high-speed Internet to 130 city buildings and 45 provincial government buildings, and will initially focus on Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Ndabeni and the southern suburbs.

Marais notes provincial government aims to build a broadband network for schools, libraries and clinics. "The network will be available to licensed telecommunications service providers to ensure Internet connectivity and increase social benefits and economic benefits through better access."

Neotel and the State Information Technology Agency (SITA) have agreed to operate the network once it is in place. The project will see broadband being provided to over 2 000 government sites across the province, initially with 10Mbps speeds per site and later an upgrade to 100Mbps, 1Gbps and some at 10Gbps.

Major cities

Johannesburg is another major city aiming to boost connectivity for residents by expanding its broadband network. In his State of the City Address in April, mayor Parks Tau said the city would connect 85 libraries across the city, providing free Internet access by the end of this year.

Tau noted the city is running a pilot health information system in partnership with the Southern African Development Community's Private Sector Constituency. The system, said Tau, will enable patients visiting various facilities to have a "single, complete health history, which can be accessed by health practitioners in both the public and private sector".

ICT veteran Adrian Schofield says government's limited resources mean they must ensure their own entities are connected before effective e-governance can take place. "There is no point in giving citizens access to infrastructure before that same infrastructure is actually delivering services," he says.

"Government must not be playing catch-up; it must be leading the way with the use of the services it will then be able to offer citizens."

Share