While SA ranks very highly in terms of connectivity internationally, it ranks very poorly in terms of Internet access and usage, as well as consumer infrastructure, a new survey commissioned by Nokia-Siemens revealed.
According to the study, SA ranked fifth among the efficiency-driven economies in the World Connectivity Scorecard, the first index which examines the extent to which governments, businesses and consumers make use of connectivity technologies.
Top among these efficiency-driven economies was Russia, followed by Malaysia, Mexico and Brazil.
A country that is in the efficiency-driven stage of development is one that needs to develop efficient production processes and increase product quality, and whose global competitiveness is driven by higher education and training, efficient markets, and the ability to harness the benefits of existing technologies.
The study looked at 25 countries in total, with nine of them being designated resource or efficiency-driven economies. Nokia Siemens Network did not break the nine countries down into which was resource and which was efficiency.
Poor scores
"SA's overall score is unfortunately brought down by a few very poor scores, particularly in terms of Internet access and usage," says Nokia Siemens media relations executive Ben Hunt.
SA has just 0.35 broadband subscribers per 1 000 inhabitants, compared to 19.3 in Malaysia, he says.
Korea, which is the best in class among the innovation-driven economies by contrast has 247.94 subscribers per 1 000 inhabitants, he says.
SA also scores very poorly on international bandwidth per capita, Internet users per 100 people, international outgoing telephone traffic (per capita) and schools connected to Internet, Hunt says.
It also does poorly on consumer infrastructure, business infrastructure and business usage and skills, the study found.
On the plus side, SA leads the sample of resource and efficiency economies when looking at adjusted software spending by consumers, female home Internet users (as a percentage of total users), as well as adjusted government software and hardware spending per capita, says Hunt. SA also leads in the categories of computer services spending by government.
Development enabler
Department of Communications spokesman Albi Modise notes that the South African government has declared the Post Office as a core provider of public ICT access, as it has ICT infrastructure in areas where private sector communications providers would not go.
Sentech has also been declared a core provider of government IT services, and will, among other things, provide connectivity for the Post Office, he says. This is in line with government's objective to use ICTs as a development enabler, he says.
Ilkka Lakaniemi, head of global political dialogue and initiatives at Nokia Siemens Networks, says there is great potential in the use of IT in SA to improve quality of life and offer opportunities such as self-employment. However, at present, SA's technological initiatives are not impacting the national economy, he says.
Improving the country's performance will depend more on social development issues such as investment in infrastructure, as well as promoting equality of access to existing technologies across the whole population.
"There have been many excellent initiatives in technology in SA, such as in mobile banking, but it will be important now to improve the skills level within the population to complement the investment in ICT," he says.
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