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ITU broadband vision 'a challenge'

Johannesburg, 22 Sept 2010

The International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) new goals for broadband development may be too ambitious for countries like SA, say analysts.

ITWeb's Broadband 2010 conference

More information about the ITWeb Broadband 2010 Conference, which takes place on 5-6 October 2010 at The Forum in Bryanston, is available online here.

However, the country could move a lot closer to achieving mass broadband penetration if government champions the cause, they add.

ITU secretary-general Dr Hamadoun Tour'e presented a report on broadband development to United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, ahead of the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York, taking place this week.

Among other things, the report noted that government support and lower costs would help drive broadband penetration. It also called for broadband access to be regarded as a basic civil right.

Tour'e asked global leaders to ensure more than half the world's population has access to broadband by 2015.

SA's own broadband policy, published in July 2010, also aims for universal access, calling for broadband access points within two kilometres of every citizen and 15% household penetration by 2019.

Lowering the bar

Arthur Goldstuck, MD of research firm World Wide Worx, is cautious in his response to the report.

“Today we have around 12% Internet access in SA, and that can be expected to rise to 15% by the end of 2011. We must avoid the temptation to set targets that are already being attained, when the real need is something far more ambitious.

“While we cannot imagine high-speed Internet access as a basic civil right in this country, we must strive to break out of the developing world shackles that tie us to a 20th-century perspective on the role of the Internet in ordinary people's lives.”

He adds that a key concern of the national broadband policy is that it sets such a low bar on its definition of universal broadband access.

“According to the policy framework, broadband is defined as an 'always available, multimedia capable connection with a download speed of at least 256kbps', and universal 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 penetration should be at least 15% by 2019'.

“Based on those definitions, any cellphone network that provides 3G or Edge access is a broadband public ICT access point, and we are already at the 15% household penetration mark on that basis,” Goldstuck says.

“The state needs to make it clear that it is referring not only to the broadband access point, but also to a community resource that provides access to ICT facilities, such as broadband-linked computers, at an affordable price.”

Commercial realities

On the ITU's calls for costs to be brought down, independent telecommunications analyst Richard Hurst notes: “The current problem is that everyone has their own plans, there is no concentrated and concerted effort on the part of the country as a whole to drive broadband uptake.”

According to Hurst, there is reluctance among operators to make initial inroads into areas with no current penetration as they cite education as an issue.

If SA is to achieve 50% penetration by 2015, Hurst lists local loop unbundling, additional fibre, user awareness and education, as well as incentives for uptake as a few examples.

Africa Analysis MD Andre Wills says broadband uptake in SA is slow because providers are currently driving broadband mainly for the “revenue stream, not humanitarian reasons”.

“The ITU secretary-general casts a vision and then it comes down to the individual countries to ask themselves whether it's something they want to believe in and find ways of achieving it. The governments themselves must come up with roadmaps and policies to stimulate growth and development in countries,” says Wills.

According to Africa Analysis, mobile broadband may be the answer, as mobile penetration is much higher than fixed-line access. “In fact, it is possible for all of Africa to have access by mobile phones,” says Wills. However, aside from the cost involved, he says there is also the problem of education and literacy to boost broadband access.

The key issue, he argues, is that most of the Internet is in English and in the rural parts of Africa, people do not speak English. Applications can be symbol-driven, but this requires local content development and in-country applications, which in turn requires a number of local skills.

The question of affordability and last mile access will come under the spotlight at ITWeb's Broadband 2010 conference, at The Forum, in Bryanston, on 5 and 6 October. The event, focusing on the business of broadband, will also address new broadband technologies and the changing face of broadband in Africa.

Click here for more information.

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