Cell C has helped tremendously to reduce the cost of mobile broadband in South Africa. This is about to change because they are increasing their pricing from1 November and ending their promotions which offered bandwidth as low as R0.07 and on prepaid options. Before the speed stick contracts were the norm for3G/mobile broadband.
There is nothing like breaking trust then playing on three pillars of technology terrorism: complexity, confusion and conflict. Let’s see how Cell C does the opposite of all the goodwill they built up during 2010/2011.
Complexity
The average man on the street does not understand the difference between GPRS or GPS. The Internet industry and now mobile is essentially included, is a complex industry. There is the back end managed by highly skilled technicians and engineers, there is the front end managed by call centres and a vast network of branches across the country. Who do you call when your Internet is not working? It could be your laptop, you ISP, your usb modem or a host of other issues.
Confusion
What options you chose is determined by the level of complexity you can handle. For years now I have advocated simplicity. One way of doing this is top stop upgrading your phone, your laptop or software whenever a new version comes out. The more options there are, the more confused you are bound to be. To avoid this, stick to what you have because in most cases it’ll suffice. There is no need to get the latest version of the iPhone or Windows7 because WindowsXP still works very well on the PC I am using to write this, and it’s 10 years old
Conflict
There is bound to be conflict. Ignorant customers or world-be customers, who are now used the special pricing model is bound to be shocked when they discover the new pricing on 1 November. This and dissatisfaction from more technically inclined customers will lead to an increase in customer service issues and probably overload the call centres during November. Cell C staff will hate their management, especially the former CEO, , who left recently and was responsible for introducing many new innovations.
Anyway there’s more to this than meets the eye. And I only wish there was more consistency with pricing and products.
How do you feel about Cell C’s price increases? Will you stay or move to 8ta?
The number of South African Internet users has passed the 5-million mark for the first time, finally breaking through the 10% mark in Internet penetration for the country.
This is the key finding of the Internet Access in South Africa 2010 study, conducted by World Wide Worx and jointly sponsored by Cisco. The headline data, released today, shows that the Internet user base grew by 15% last year, from 4,6-million to 5,3-million, and is expected to grow at a similar rate in 2010.
“The good news is that we will continue to see strong growth in 2010, and we should reach the 6-million mark by the end of the year,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx.
“A sustained growth in Internet penetration is a key factor that will positively influence the economy of South Africa”, says Reshaad Sha, Senior Manager for Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group. “The varied range of application services and social networking platforms used by local consumers has fuelled the uptake that we see today.”
Growth in the number of Internet users in South Africa was relatively stagnant from 2002 to 2007, when it never rose above 7%. However, this rate almost doubled in 2008, and continued accelerating in 2009.
World Wide Worx found that the landing of a new undersea cable on the South African coast was only one of a range of factors behind the growth. Of greater significance was the granting of Electronic Communications Network Service licenses to more than 400 organisations. This meant that service providers that were previously required to buy their network access from one of the major providers, could now build their own networks or choose where they wanted to buy their access.
The result was that a market previously characterised by a limited range of providers and services suddenly exploded as small providers were able to repackage the services provided by the large telecommunications corporations in any way they wished. The large providers, in turn, began to offer far more competitive packages to both customers and resellers.
World Wide Worx found that a second key factor in growth over the past two years has been the continued uptake of broadband connectivity by small and medium enterprises migrating from dial-up connectivity. Each company moving from dial-up to ADSL, for example, extended Internet access to general office staff. This process was found to add an additional one to 20 new users to the Internet user base for every small business installing ADSL.
While the headline findings examine the general numbers of users, the final Internet Access in SA 2010 report, due to be released in March, will highlight the extent of new fibre-optic networks laid down across South African cities and between the cities. It will also examine the impact of the range of new undersea cables that will be in place by the end of 2011, and which is expected to enhance competitiveness even further.
“In the coming year, operators will begin to leverage the combination of new undersea cable capacity and new fibre-optic networks to supply corporate clients and resellers with bigger, faster and more flexible capacity,” says Goldstuck. “Almost every large player in the communications industry has realigned its business to take advantage of this relentless change.”
“South African consumers and businesses are demanding access to online applications and services that can only be experienced via high speed connectivity, such as fibre-optic networks. The year ahead will see the proliferation of high speed connectivity materialising more widely than ever before”, concludes Sha.
“The increase comes on the eve of the biggest shakeup in South African Internet access we’ve seen since the dawn of the commercial Internet in 1994,” says Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx. “It is only the beginning of a dramatic turnaround, and is occurring despite numerous obstacles in the way of growth.”
Among these obstacles has been a highly restrictive regulatory environment, with the Minister of Communications only deciding late in the year not to oppose a court ruling that would allow all network operators to supply their own infrastructure.
The evolution and changes in the telecommunications industry could not have come at a better time in South Africa. “We believe these changes will lead to sufficient levels of competition, increase access to Internet usage and in turn, increase global competitiveness and economic diversity,” says Reshaad Ahmed, Senior Manager of Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group.
“South Africa could, potentially, go from five major service providers to more than 300 overnight,” says Ahmed. “The combination of new licencees, policy directions, and municipality networks has set the stage for a highly competitive telecommunications marketplace, with consumers and businesses leading the charge toward choice, competition, and fair market value.”
Goldstuck describes the Minister’s decision as a pivotal moment, but one that should have occurred four years ago.
“In that time we saw growth slow to a near standstill, and the possibility of bringing access to underserviced area becoming ever more remote,” adds Goldstuck. “But the market has been anticipating this change, and numerous small, semi-legal networks have sprung up around the country in the past year. Many of these should emerge above the radar with their new licenses, along with new entrants into the market.”
The Internet Access in SA 2008 report shows that growth has come largely on the back of dramatic take-up of broadband offerings by small businesses, which alone accounted for half of the growth in the market, mainly through connecting office staff to their ADSL links. At the same time, the market as a whole has seen a continued dramatic shift from dial-up connections to broadband, with growth in both ADSL and 3G at more than 50%.
“We are seeing a broadband culture emerging in South Africa, held back only by the restrictions still placed on data capacity,” says Goldstuck. “These should start becoming a non-issue from the middle of 2009, as the first of the major new undersea cables enters operation. At that point, dial-up will effectively be dead as a connectivity option – it is more expensive, and utterly inappropriate to the changing nature of the Internet.
“Once everyone who is connected is on broadband or high-speed networks, the Internet will come into its own as an environment for business collaboration and personal interaction.”
The Seacom undersea cable, commissioned mainly by new market entrant Neotel, will increase South Africa’s international bandwidth 40-fold, and will mark the beginning of what World Wide Worx describes as a seismic shift in the Internet landscape in Africa. But it is only one of a series of new cables in the works, which will make the connectivity landscape completely unrecognisable for both South Africa and the rest of the continent by 2013.
“It spells the birth of an entirely new industry, and we are already seeing the market champing at the bit to become part of that industry,” says Goldstuck.
However, Cisco warns change won’t happen overnight.
“Only some of the 300-plus contenders will be in a position to manage their own networks due to their ability to raise the necessary capital,” cautions Ahmed. “Those that do step up to the challenge must spend a significant amount of time building a business model that will be sustainable, innovative, and takes advantage of the strategic position with which a contender is faced, while employing the capabilities of existing service providers.
“We are therefore pleased with these findings as they indicate a positive trend for economic growth. We believe that pervasive broadband at the right price is a key enabler for economic prosperity.”
“It is imperative for all relevant stakeholders to drive broadband to encourage new services: skills, education, business interaction and lowering the cost of doing business,” Ahmed concludes.
This is a portion of an interview for Huisgenoot magazine from 2007. I’m not even sure if it was ever published because the journalist was forced to redo the initial interview, which focussed on Skype to include a few questions about Internet access.
Dial-up: is the original mechanism used by home users to connect to the Internet access. Your computer connects to the Internet via telephone line. Your operating system like WindowsXP or Linux uses a modem to connect a computer and a telephone line to dial into an Internet service provider’s (ISP) node to establish a modem-to-modem link, which is then routed to the Internet. It is an analogue connection and by comparison the slowest Internet connection. Prices vary from R45 to R145 per month.
ISDN: is a circuit-switched telephone network system, designed to allow digital transmission of voice and data over ordinary telephone copper wires, resulting in better quality and higher data speeds than
are available with analogue. It was often used in videoconferencing because it provides simultaneous voice, video, and text transmissions. Pricing is a combination of monthly subscription + hours dialed into the Internet.
3G: is the 3rd generation of cellphone standards and technology. 3G technologies enable cellphone network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved efficiency. Pricing varies based on many different packages. You can purchase a contract and get the modem free; you can buy the moden and use pre-paid airtime; or you can use a 3G/HSDPA phone to connect using Bluetooth. HSDPA (High-Speed Downlink Packet Access) is a new mobile data protocol and is sometimes referred to as a 3.5G (or “3½G”) technology. It’s available from Vodacom, MTN, Cell C and Virgin Mobile.
iBurst: is based on IntelliCell technology from ArrayComm in the US. It uses radio frequencies with base stations and modems. Pricing vary from R49 to R1099 per month. They operate on a reseller model like ADSL so you can purchase it from most ISPs.
MyWireless: is a form of Internet connectivity that uses “wireless” technology by creating a radio-based connection to the Internet using network of specially erected towers (base stations). As such, MyWireless provides a secure Internet telecommunications platform at speeds of up to 512kbps. It’s similar to iBurst. Pricing varies from R499 to R1500 per month.
All internet connections require a modem unless you are using your cell phone as a modem. There are packages that includes free modems and some that don’t which can be more expensive per month.
MyADSL reports that South Africa is nearing 1 million broadband Internet connections…
South Africa is closing in on the one million broadband connection mark, mainly due to fast wireless broadband growth.
Telkom’s ADSL service is still the leading broadband service in South Africa with around 400 000 subscribers.
Vodacom’s 3G/HSDPA service is fast catching up to ADSL with 350 000 subscribers, and with a strong focus on broadband from Vodacom’s new Vodacom Business division 2008 may be the year where Vodacom surpasses Telkom in broadband subscribers.
MTN’s has not released any 3G/HSDPA subscriber numbers recently, but it is estimated that the mobile provider has around 70 000 subscribers.
iBurst continues to show good growth with 60 000 subscribers while Sentech has only a few thousand MyWireless subscribers left.
This brings the total number of broadband connections in South Africa to 930 000. It is expected that the 1 Million broadband subscriber mark will be reached before the middle of 2008.
Treveor Manuel has announced a new initiative to offer cheaper broadband to Academics to facilitate and foster research. This is really something which government has been slow to address. Broadband should be available at discounted rates to students and especially for postgraduagte students. When they are not on campus they have to access the Internet using their own resources. Just today as Honours student came to our offices to discuss some part time research and writing work. However, he access the internet using a dial-up. And this is horribly slow. To really be productive as researchers we need the fastest possible connections. And it is our opinion that a special network is unecessary. The better approach is to offer subsidy to registered postgraduate students at all universities. Say for example a 50% discount on the ADSL or other broadband offering would be a tremendous step in the right direction. And even if these students are part-time like the typical MBA student or a studying through UNISA the same rules should apply.
As you may have written down in you diary that a major event to attend in November was the 2006 MyADSL Broadband Conference held at Vodaworld, Midrand, South Africa. That was one of the many ICT related forum focusing directly on widening digital access to communities and the information poor. In this article i am going to explore four major components with regard to broadband. These include a definition and little background on broadband, the meaning of broadband access, broadband access and the idea of the Internet, Policy and Regulations: a regulatory dilemma and Broadband challenges for the information poor.
What is broadband?
Refers to the capacity to transmit/exchange large volume and quality of electronic signals (including data, video, text and voice) as quick as possible. You have probably heard of convergence, yes? Broadband is at the heart of the convergence of telecommunication, information technology and broadcasting. As you may have read my early publication on Neotel, Neotel is one such of an example of convergence. By convergence, we mean to imply that different technologies and media are used to provide broadband (in this instance) services. In other words, these definitions should give rise to two points, the first is that communications should then be cheap and affordable, think of outsourcing as an example. Secondly, communication should be of quality and be rapid. There may be competition between: networks , as will be a case in South Africa since Neotel joined Telkom. Together these two issues imply a radical change in competitive at all levels from the application service provider to the network provider. There may be a need to review and modify competition policy and regulation. One should however remember that regulation has long been justified as a means to regulate scarce resources, now things are changing. But can regulation then disappear? No-nation states will continue to be relevant.
What is broadband access/connectivity?
Broadband access can be provided by guided media (either copper or fibre-optic), or by unguided media (air-interface) such as satellite or terrestrial microwave. Many developed and middle income countries have a policy of rolling out fibre-based infrastructure across the country. If broadband networks are to have a wide geographic coverage, the expense of this investment may render public-private cooperation essential in some countries. Even with public-private cooperation, the cost of establishing fibre infrastructure in rural or regional areas means that universal service may never be achieved. For developing countries the more immediate goal may be to promote wider Internet access, which may be possible.
Broadband access and the idea of the Internet!
The current interest in broadband is largely due to the Internet, which permits familiar services to be delivered in unfamiliar ways. This includes the delivery of voice services that compete with traditional telephony delivered over circuit-switched networks. Similarly, broadband infrastructure enables web casting of video or audio signals that compete with broadcast networks. Until now, the Internet has generally delivered these services at a lower quality with less reliability than conventional networks, but broadband access promises to change all that. Broadband is often called high-speed Internet, because it usually has a high rate of data transmission. In general, any connection to the customer of 256 kbps (0.250 Mbit/s) or more is considered broadband Internet. The International Telecommunication Union Standardization Sector (ITU-T) recommendation I.113 has defined broadband as a transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate ISDN, at 1.5 to 2 Mbit/s. Policy and Regulations: a regulatory dilemma. The high costs of duplicating broadband infrastructure suggests a monopoly advantage to the first mover in both the backbone and the local loop. Such as Telkom, despite the South African Department of Communications newly established community on ‘unbundling the local loop’. This raises competition policy concerns. Experts argue that competition for a particular broadband operator can come in the form of regulated sharing of infrastructure, such as 3G licences tend to require, or from other broadband media such as terrestrial microwave or satellite. However, the first mover advantage remains strong.
Cross-media competition points to issues of technologically neutral regulation. Broadcast TV, telephony and cable TV, for example, are typically subject to distinct policy philosophies and regulation .The question arises: just how can technologically-neutral regulation accommodate factors that have traditionally been technologically-specific and around which entire industries have grown up?
Broadband challenges for the information poor!
The challenges facing the future of broadband in remote areas has often been referred to as ‘Rural broadband’-One of the great challenges of broadband is to provide service to potential customers in areas of low population density, such as to farmers .We have heard those from Open Access Networks, Neotel , and others at the 2006 MyADSL Conference about challenges facing municipalities .However, In cities where the population density is high, it is easy for a service provider to recover equipment costs, but each rural customer may require thousands of rands of equipment to get connected. A similar problem existed a century ago when electrical power was invented. Cities were the first to receive electric lighting, as early as 1880, while in the United States some remote rural areas were still not electrified until the 1940′s, and even then only with the help of federally funded programs like the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and the same in South Africa. Several rural broadband solutions exist, though each has its own pitfalls and limitations. Some choices are better than others, but are dependent on how proactive the local phone company is about upgrading their rural technology. These are the debate that centred around broadband connectivity forums in 2006, but the dream of universal access can not disappear, ordinary citizens must be empowered by providing access to technologies.
Do you still remember thatMTN was the first in South Africa to bring you EDGE (or Enhanced Data for GSM Evolution), a 3G technology that delivers broadband data speeds to mobile devices. Do you recall that MTN EDGE is five times faster than conventional GPRS. Antone who heard of EDGE technology was very excited by then, but the only thing is that without an EDGE enabled cellphone one need GPRS + (General Packet Radio Services). MTN’s HSDPA offering took third place with 81% and its third generation (3G) service scored 65% , a worry some fact for MTN given its global reach so popular in Nigeria and recently entering politically troubled and conflict driven Middle East. In 2006 MTN customer should expect more or as Brian Seligmann Senior Manager for Data Services at MTN puts it, “real broadband”. From a user perspective that statement sound like a justification of MTN ‘s low performance on broadband generally.
A lot has been said and debated at different ICT industry forums about Neotel’s dream work and missions. But there has’nt been as yet more rigorous and easy to measure development, people begin to question the telecs ‘s ability to win over Telkom. On paper, Neotel (the word NEO in Pedi means to give (or gift)-can it then mean ‘to give telecommunications’- the question is at what cost and how much quality broadband can we expect? On cost, expect very ‘affordable’, and as for quality time will tell. The problem, it seems, lies on expertise to carry through the business plan! Neotel plans to introduce a variety of voice and data services (including high speed internet and broadband) for consumers in South Africa, with the first of these services targeted for availability in April 2007. However, consumers are already benefiting indirectly from the introduction of Neotel’s wholesale services through improved quality of international voice calls and more reliable internet bandwidth offered by Telecom provider.
At the MyADSL Broadband conference Angus Hay, the Executive Head of Strategy at Neotel continued to be diplomatic as did during the iWeek 2006 conference. An interesting thing is that by combining data, Voice and Internet Neotel is sure to transform the face of telecommunications in South Africa-giving rise to the phenomenon of convergence. This will also give Neotel to play a greater role on broadband connectivity. With its global reach (teleglobe), Neotel is likely to reach for the stars. However, to turn that good business plan into good business operations requires team work and contextualisation.
The idea behind Broadband is mainly to open doors for inclusive access- where anyone can play on a fair and none discriminatory, while promoting ensure fair trade. Open Access Networks is one of the few community driven success story. An attempt to ‘level the playing field’ and stimulated competition as a means to promote greater creativity and innovation. Open Access has played a greater role towards participatory democracy or what those Roelf Diedericks Technical Director at Neology called “networking democracy”. Critiques will agree as well that apart from these good philosophies, such plans will promote new entrants of smaller players to survive thus creating employment. These social obligation is at the heart of Neology ‘s plan. But is it feasible ?
Well that is a question everybody asked before, for now it is evident that progress has been made over and above. By looking at Neology’s Infrastructure layer as a third component on its three Open Access layers, success is achievable and indeed some victories have been made. Neology offers competitive Municipal Wifi seen by Google and Microsoft as ‘viable’. However, it is essential on the part of the government to ensure that regulations seek to promote ,not restrict, access.
Cell C has helped tremendously to reduce the cost of mobile broadband in South Africa. This is about to change because they are increasing their pricing from1 November and ending their promotions which offered bandwidth as low as R0.07 and on prepaid options. Before the speed stick contracts were the norm for3G/mobile broadband.
The number of 
