South Africa is 12 months behind Europe in terms of broadband Internet connectivity and voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) technology.
This is according to Justin Spratt, general manager of VOIP mobile and WiFi hotspot businesses at Internet Solutions.
Spratt spoke at the Tech4Africa conference at the Forum in Bryanston, this week, and slammed high mobile telephony costs in SA.
He said VOIP over WiFi technologies and fixed-mobile converged networks will circumvent the high costs associated with the monopolies run by the major mobile operators.
“Mobile calls are 10 times cheaper in India and China than in SA, despite the fact that infrastructure costs are similar to SA due to geographical disparity. Ten times is too much in my book,” said Spratt.
“We worked out that we could save businesses 30% of total telco spend using this technology.” Spratt said Internet Solutions is driving a network strategy that is still in its pilot phase for the under-serviced areas in Africa.
From a mobile device perspective, he noted, applications and Web 2.0 will motivate consumers to use devices with operating systems such as Google's Android operating system.
“By the end of next year, BlackBerry will be in serious decline marketwise. And the reason for this is that they do not have the consumer at the centre of their strategy. Android is going to overtake iPhone and it will become the dominant player because its development environment is open, easy and seamless.”
He added: “The customer needs to be at the centre of every decision. We're seeing the consumerisation of technology driving a lot of business decisions.”
Spratt claimed 4G technology is overrated in emerging regions such as Africa because of the high cost of its deployment. He added that mobile operators will first get the most out of current 3G technologies and it will be some time before SA sees 4G connectivity.
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