Fibre will widen digital divide

The digital divide will more than likely be increased by the roll-out of broadband fibre-optic cable as there is no real political will, nor are service providers being innovative about its uses, experts say.

Roll-out of broadband connectivity is moving to the front and centre of the national connectivity debate, with the Department of Communications last week releasing its national broadband strategy. The strategy is being considered by industry and other stakeholders.

International research firm Gartner says ultra-high-speed residential broadband will create a bandwidth divide that will emerge in the next three to five years, in which urbanised areas will benefit from increased download speeds, while rural and less-populated areas will not.

Ultra-high-speed residential broadband is defined as a broadband service supporting download speeds of 50Mbps and above. It will have a wide-ranging impact on consumers, from the way they experience video, to how they communicate in the future.

At the same time, it will open up significant opportunities for application developers and service providers to improve and increase application offerings.

Fernando Elizalde, principal research analyst at Gartner, says: “Ultra broadband will exacerbate the digital divide among different world regions, as well as within countries. Governments in countries that lag behind in the deployment of ultra broadband will come under increasing pressure to use public funds to upgrade broadband infrastructure to avoid falling behind.”

South Africa appears to be one of the countries that is lagging.

Arthur Goldstuck, MD of local research firm World Wide Worx, says there is a lack of political will to develop the country's telecommunications infrastructure.

Goldstuck says the roll-out of new fibre-optic connectivity looks set to continue the trend of separating the digital haves and have-nots, in terms of affluence and geographic location, particularly between those in urban and rural areas.

“The trend is already in place and little is being done to stop it. Urban areas have ADSL, while rural areas still have to rely on spotty WiMax connectivity and even their cellular connectivity is limited for broadband services.”

Goldstuck believes the political will has not been forthcoming in trying to address this.

“It has taken more than five years for the interconnection issue to begin to be addressed, but, in the meantime, government has spent huge amounts of money on projects that have had very little direct visible benefit to the country,” he notes.

These, Goldstuck says, include R40 billion on the arms deal, R20 billion on the Gautrain project and another R20 billion on taxi recapitalisation.

The private sector must also shoulder part of the blame, he adds.

Gustav Smit, MD of Dark Fibre Africa, says service providers have not begun to address the roll-out of fibre-optic cable in an innovative manner, to offer services to as large a customer base as possible.

“I suppose this is all new for them and they are still working out their strategies, but they are taking their time.”

Smit points out that his company has laid more than 1 080km of fibre-optic over the past year and some of it passes small towns, but no service providers have seized the opportunity to introduce products to meet market demand in these areas.

“Last mile connectivity is not really a major issue, because where a service provider has signed on a number of small customers, cable can be laid,” he adds.

Goldstuck says the country needs an equivalent of a “Marshall Plan”: a comprehensive strategy to roll-out broadband to as much of the country as possible.

“Our economy will need it and it will not only offer broadband services, but also ensure fixed-line telephony will be increased.”