SA broadband in low gear

In regards to broadband development, SA is still taking its first steps and there is need for drastic changes within the next 18 months if the country is to set foot on the high road.

So said Angus MacRobert, an investor at Axxess DSL, speaking during the ITWeb Broadband Conference at The Forum in Bryanston, yesterday.

The protagonists stifling broadband development in the country are the Department of Communications (DOC) as well its agency, the Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA), according to MacRobert

“ICASA's inconsistency and shortage of expertise in SA's telecoms industry have been the major contributing factors in SA's broadband being slow to take off,” he pointed out.

He said though the DOC-proposed local loop unbundling by 2011, the target now looks unachievable as ICASA kept “dragging its feet to get the job done”.

The other problem, MacRobert revealed, was that SA had no clear definition of broadband. Currently, SA defines broadband as 256Kbps while the ITU sets it from 1.5Mbps to 2Mbps and the US standard is 4Mbps.

“We cannot set such a low standard if we are serious about broadband development. It would be better if we use the ITU standard as a yardstick to measure ourselves.”

Speaking at the same event, Arthur Goldstuck MD of World Wide Worx, concurred with MacRobert that SA has an inadequate definition of broadband.

He said universal broadband access is defined as 'a public ICT access point within a two kilometre radius of any person in a sparsely populated area' and, 'in terms of service penetration, household broadband should be at least 15% by 2019.

Goldstuck added that the debate about what speed defines broadband masks the fact that it has a dictionary definition related to what it does, rather than how fast it is.

“Broadband, technically, is a connection that allows simultaneous transmission of video, audio, graphics and text. Acceptable broadband needs to be a broadband service of a standard that sees no degradation or buffering in accessing or streaming such material,” he explained.

According to Goldstuck, “any speed that results in buffering for a specific type of content is too slow for that type of content. You may, for example, have a high speed, but over a heavily contended service, where multiple users result in degradation of throughput for individuals.”

So it's not about the speed of the broadband, but about the quality of the broadband. Good broadband allows throughput that does not compromise quality,” Goldstuck said.

MacRobert added that the definition does not apply to wireless spectrum.

For SA to get to the high road, he suggested that government auctions the remaining wireless spectrum. “Besides auctioning the remaining wireless spectrum, white space and broadcast airwaves, government must implement the 'use it or lose it' policy in regards to spectrum.”

This, he said, will also involve the introduction of tax breaks to incetivise fibre-to-the-home deployment and local loop unbundling.

He also pointed out that SA should up efforts to boost broadband in the traditionally underserved areas like rural ones.

“Since 2000, there have been 316 million new mobile phone users in Africa and it is envisaged that by 2040 there would be 1.1 billion subscribers on the continent. Thus, we have to boost broadband in SA, otherwise we will lag behind,” said MacRobert.

In Africa, SA ranks at number four in terms of Internet usage. He attributed the growth of broadband use that the country has seen to mobile broadband, MacRobert revealed.

“SA sits at number 86 in the world in terms of global average connection speed,” he pointed out.

Goldstuck also noted that though ADSL has a significant role for businesses in Africa, fixed-line ADSL was being left behind by wireless broadband access, with an 88% growth in wireless subscribers in the past year while only 15% of fixed lines become ADSL lines.

“We have already seen in SA that mobile broadband has rapidly outpaced fixed-line broadband. But this is more of an indictment on the state of fixed-line infrastructure than on the miracle of wireless. Most users in this country are in corporate employ, so it is not yet being used as a bridge across the digital divide,” said Goldstuck.

He also agued that broadband represents high-speed Internet access only in the sense of its relative speed compared to dial-up. “Once dial-up is gone, it will be almost meaningless to talk about broadband as a distinct form of access, since all connectivity will, in effect, be broadband.”

He projected that SA will see an increase in the number of PCs up to the year 2015. However, he pointed out that there would still be a huge gap between those with PCs and those with access to the Internet.