A revised version of government’s national broadband plan, published in the Government Gazette last week, makes all of the right noises about bridging the digital divide, making connectivity affordable and reducing duplication of infrastructure but, like a previous incarnation, it fails to offer concrete direction, particularly around Telkom.

The revised plan closely resembles an earlier version, published last year. The plan was originally proposed in 2010.

The short version is this: broadband is good for job creation and economic growth — and it’s essential if South Africa is to thrive as a knowledge economy — so let’s ensure everyone has access to it and quickly.

A number of the revised plan’s proposals are sensible, including coordinating broadband activities within government while paying attention to the private sector.

But there is little clarity on the real role of the state in all of this this. The plan says: “Telkom will provide the bulk of the core backbone infrastructure [and] will be supported by other state-owned companies and the private sector.”

What the broadband plan omits to explain is how this will be done. Does government plan to Telkom split into separate wholesale and retail arms? Will it renationalise the company? These are the sorts of questions a policy document should answer.

To avoid duplication of infrastructure, the draft plan proposes coordinating the activities of national, provincial and local government and creating a broadband inter-governmental implementation committee, to oversee this. Critics have argued that creating and managing the proposed committee could hamper rather than aid government’s aims because it could just be another unnecessary administrative layer plagued by political indecision.

Communications minister Dina Pule says a strong broadband plan is essential, both for government and private citizens, because greater connectivity has been shown to increase GDP and foster job creation. “In the end, this policy must help the country to increase its productivity and place South Africa at the cutting edge of technological advancement.”

Broadband does lead to economic growth. The World Bank now famously calculated that a 10% increase in broadband penetration results in a 1% to 1,5% increase in GDP.

But South Africa is losing its place as the technological shining light of Africa to Kenya. A well formulated broadband policy won’t arrest this, but good implementation of it will. Even if the policy plan wasn’t lacking in crucial details, it’s the implementation that ultimately matters.

The broadband plan document bemoans the lack of broadband infrastructure in South Africa and the lack of options available to those in rural areas. Moreover, it asserts that connectivity in South Africa varies greatly in cost and that, on the whole, broadband is “not affordable to the majority of the population” and government will have to “play a critical role in the deployment of broadband backbone networks, especially in rural and underserviced areas, which are regarded as not being commercially viable by operators”.

It’s not unreasonable to suggest intervention may be necessary to reach rural communities given that commercial operators (arguably) lack the financial incentive to do so on their own. Again, however, clarity is needed on what role government and its agencies are going to play.

As a set of guidelines, there are things to like in the revised national broadband plan. But there are far too many areas that need real clarity, instead of just more hopeful rhetoric. — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media