South Africa's inclusion into the grouping of the world's major emerging market economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICS), has put the spotlight squarely on Africa's biggest economy, and its ability to contribute to the combined efforts of these economic powerhouses.
While SA can't compete in terms of its population size or GDP, there are other areas where it is able to punch above its weight-class, such as infrastructure, monetary policy and economic stability. Most importantly though is the country's IP-based and telecommunications infrastructure.
Internet access and IP infrastructure are the biggest economic drivers in the modern world, and will remain the catalyst of innovation, advancement and economic prosperity in the future. As such, it's very promising to see how SA's IP capabilities stack up, and how it can contribute positively to the BRIC nations.
SA accounts for over 60% of all Internet traffic generated in Africa. This is a clear indication of the role the Internet plays in increasing the economic strength of a country per capita, as South Africa only has 6.8 million Internet users out of an estimated 49 million inhabitants.
This can be attributed to the number of fibre-optic undersea cables that have landed, or are planned for our shores, on both sides of the country, in the form of SAT-3/WASC, Seacom, WACS, EASSy and ACE, with Main One and SAex in the pipeline. The capacity that these cables provide is driving an important shift in SA's Internet usage paradigm, as a number of service providers are investing heavily into creating national terrestrial fibre networks to deliver this capacity to end-users.
Similar parallels can be drawn with other BRIC nations that are similarly well supplied with undersea cables. China connects via the APCN2, C-J FOSC, CKC, CUCN and the EAC-C2C cables, among others, while India is connected to the Bharat Lanka Cable System, EIG, I-ME-WE, India-UAE and IOCOM cables.
Brazil and Russia have fewer cables; however, these countries make up for this in other areas. For instance, since the privatisation of the Brazilian telecommunications market in 1998, the cost, quality and availability of Internet services has greatly improved, driving broadband availability to 88% in major Brazilian cities. This supports the almost 67 million Internet users there, who generally access the Internet via their mobile phones.
Russia's Internet user base has also ballooned 180% over the last two years. Over 16 million people use the Internet, mostly in major cities, where metro WiFi networks provide pervasive Internet access to a growing number of IP-enabled devices. In fact, Moscow is the largest urban wireless network in the world. South African service providers have taken notice of this, and are also rolling out metro WiFi networks.
Russia is also transforming its broadband infrastructure, as the market looks to migrate beyond voice-centric services, to a converged model, where voice, data and video can be shared across a single piece of IP network infrastructure. Due to the vast geographic nature of the country, and the poor existing infrastructure, this rollout includes terrestrial and wireless solutions.
South Africa finds itself in a similar situation, as geographical limitations, the issue of access to the local loop, and the rapid expansion of mobile networks ensures that we have a wide variety of platforms to connect with.
India also faces similar challenges to South Africa in terms of Internet liberalisation, as local loop unbundling is yet to happen there. However, a number of other network systems run on the most sophisticated technology in the world, and supports the world's third-largest Internet user base of over 100 million users. However, India has one of the lowest Internet penetration rates, at just 8.4%, with only 0.9% of the population connected via fixed-line broadband. Interestingly, 40 million people access the Internet via their mobile phones, in a country predicted to have a mobile subscriber base of over 1 billion by 2013.
China, the economic powerhouse of the group, has the largest Internet user base, at 485 million, and a level of network sophistication that can support this moniker. Many of these users connect via DSL, while a growing number connect via mobile devices. It is projected that China's Internet population will surpass the 675 million mark by 2014.
In stark contrast, South Africa's Internet user base is only projected to reach 9 million users by 2014. However, the speed, price and availability of that broadband will be greatly improved, as more undersea cables come online, more mobile operators rollout their next-generation wireless networks, and the digital dividend spectrum becomes available. The unbundling of the local loop is also set to happen soon, supported by additional terrestrial fibre rollouts to the curb.
With this arsenal of IP-based infrastructure at our disposal, South Africa certainly stands up to comparisons against any BRIC nation, and this level of capability will enable us to do business differently, with the potential to make the Rainbow Nation a true economic powerhouse in the information age.
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