Broadband drives rural upliftment

By Alex Kayle, Senior portals journalist

Johannesburg, 14 Aug 2009

A thriving ICT infrastructure drives socio-economic development, according to Thobile Mkhize, services solutions manager for Nokia Siemens Network.

Mkhize will highlight the potential of broadband for rural community development at the ITWeb Broadband conference, taking place on 8 and 9 October at the Indaba Hotel in Fourways.

In SA, only 1 058 million people, less than 2.5% of the South African population, are broadband users, according to the FTTH Council Europe.

Last month, Seacom landed its high-speed undersea fibre optic cables in Mtunzini in KwaZulu-Natal, with the promise to deliver 1.28Tbps of international bandwidth. Connecting this bandwidth inland to the rural communities could bring about many economic benefits.

“Through a thriving ICT infrastructure the rural communities would become participants of the world like their counterparts in the suburbs and townships. They would be able to access opportunities to small to medium enterprises, education and banking. They'd become part of the SA that we all hope to share,” says Mkhize.

“Schools can be connected to peers in the city and they can do e-learning and knowledge sharing. Teachers would no longer need to spend vast amounts of money to travel to workshops if their schools were ICT-enabled with video conferencing. Learners who do not have access to libraries would be able to do research online to supplement their learning.”

She points out that broadband encourages interaction among entrepreneurs, enabling them to communicate with one another and learn better methodologies to produce items and market their craftwork. Farmers would be able to share best practices and determine market prices. In addition, broadband has the potential to drive the roll-out of banking services in rural areas.

According to Mkhize, broadband penetration remains fairly low because of the high costs of accessing ICT services. “Cellular technology has gone far to improve this situation, and today most rural households have access to a mobile device and are thus able to access basic voice and data (SMS) services via the GSM telco providers.

“The approach from the telco providers has been to provide low grade mobile connectivity, and thus multimedia services are hot highly used. On the upside, however, because there is some ICT access for these rural communities, members from the outside world are able to get in touch with distant relatives.”