Yada yada

The man who controls government's purse strings, finance minister Pravin Gordhan, recently sent out a clear message when he said government needs to actually get down to fulfilling its promises.

The finance minister said both the state and private sector must stop talking about how to get more South Africans hooked up to the Internet, and get down to doing it.

The fact is, despite a drop in the cost of connecting, and access to far more bandwidth than we have ever had before, not enough South Africans are plugged into the World Wide Web.

Gordhan's comments could be viewed as a breath of fresh air. Especially, as he points out, with the urgent need for SA to move now to take advantage of a recovery in the global economy, even though some parts of the world are still on shaky financial ground.

Cynical South Africans will be forgiven for interpreting what he said as nothing more than empty statements, as the state does not have a record of turning goals into concrete reality.

There are scores of government projects that would use ICT to better citizens' lives, but for all the talk we have heard about e-government, very little of it is real.

Even if government were to go online to reach its citizens, only about 10% of South Africans would be able to interact with it that way - because the rest are cut off from the Web.

Rural broadband access to enable even more South Africans to get connected has been on the cards for years, but actual concrete results don't seem to be filtering through.

In addition, government has been promising for years to lower the cost of doing business in SA - and a key part of this is making communications cheaper.

Yet, despite the promises, very little of any cost savings can be attributed to government.

Yes, we have cheaper broadband now than a few years ago. But this is the result of companies buying stakes in undersea cables, and not because government laid fibre under the sea.

The sector regulator should be hanging its head in shame, because it hasn't really been able to deliver any real change.

Nicola Mawson, senior journalist, ITWeb

The state didn't force MWeb to launch uncapped ADSL. MWeb's independent move caused competition among other players, which led to cheaper fixed-line broadband across the board.

Government has sometimes stood in the way of competition in the market, forcing companies to resort to litigation to free up the telecoms sector.

Altech took former communication minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri to court to make it possible for firms to self-provide their own networks. This paved the way for value-added network services to operate as telcos, without having to piggyback on other networks, leading to a shift in the communications landscape.

Costs have also come down in the mobile sector, but this is no reason for the Independent Communications Authority of SA to pat itself on the back.

Pure and simple competition has driven costs down. Broadband and mobile companies simply want a larger share of the pie, and are trimming costs to boost their base.

The sector regulator should be hanging its head in shame, because it hasn't really been able to deliver any real change, for whatever reason.

Local loop unbundling, for example, should have been sorted out years ago, but is now only likely to happen this year, unless there are further complications from Telkom's side about who should pay to maintain the copper.

By then, the need for a physical last mile could almost be irrelevant. Operators have been digging up roads and installing fibre, and others have simply gone the wireless route.

It's a moot point as to whether we actually need copper, which keeps getting stolen anyway.

The list of promises goes on and on: smart ID cards, teachers with laptops that they can use, a functioning call centre to complain to president Jacob Zuma, a company registration office that isn't susceptible to fraud...

The sad reality is SA should have moved years ago on all of these projects. It should have opened up the telecoms sector much sooner than it did, and instead of creating state entities like Sentech and Broadband Infraco to tackle the digital divide, should have enabled private business to fill this need.

Government does need to stop talking, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should start physically doing - instead it should enable the “doing” bit to the benefit of all.

Enabling the private sector to fill SA's broadband and connectivity needs will result in more people logging on, and that will filter through to economic growth.