Bandwidth capacity in SA to double by 2011
Arthur Goldstuck, CEO World Wide Worx
Speaking at the IT Leaders Summit in Johannesburg in front of CEOs and CIOs, Goldstuck addressed once more the challenges faced by the African continent in connecting to the world, whether latest technologies can make a difference and what lies beyond 2010.
“The barriers have already begun to fall in South Africa. In 2009, Telkom upgraded its SAT3 cable sustainability, Seacom started and is only using a fraction of its capacity. The reason is there is not enough competition into the market. It will take 5 years or more to use the cables at full capacity”, commented Goldstruck.
He added that, although some of the cables announced won’t be in place for 2010, the launch of West African Cable System (WACS) next year will be the one to watch, but bandwidth capacity has started to improve significantly from the past years, due to technology improvements, especially in the business sector.
According to a World Wide Worx study, bandwidth capacity will almost triple by 2011 from 5.420 GB/s to 12.200 GB/s, a major improvement from last 2-3 years.
“Bandwidth to the continent will more than double in the next two years. The latest trends to follow here are fibre to the home, wireless broadband and 4G. A third of broadband subscribers also have ADSL as connection, which suggests they are using 3G as a backup rather than their main connection”, explained Goldstruck.
In 2009, 1.494.000 subscribers were connected wirelessly, from a total of 5.300.000 users, representing around 10% of the total South African population. The figures are still behind Nigeria and Egypt in terms of Internet usage and connection availability. As a rough comparison, the top-most connected countries in the world exceed 60% in Internet penetration.
By 2013, Goldstuck estimates a reach of 10 million internet users in South Africa. However, even with the growing consumer demand and Internet services availability, mobility might pose an important issue as the use of smartphones by adults, for example, is not as high as expected in the country.
Wireless, mobile technologies are essential to “enter the digital highway as a nation”, commented Naledi Pandor, minister of Science and Technology, during the opening session of the ITLeaders Summit, also stressing the importance of accessing e-learning for the younger generation and the significant role that technology plays in the business environment today.
