ECN Telecommunications says government needs to set tangible goals for Internet provision that private business can use to measure itself.

Speaking at the sixth annual broadband summit underway this week in Rosebank, ECN CEO John Holdsworth says a number of good ideas have been circulated in industry through regulation and policy. “But the time for talking is over. We now need to act and implement these ideas,” he says.

Holdsworth says a lack of regulatory interventions and investment in infrastructure and the high cost of services have all served to keep SA’s Internet penetration down.

According to Holdsworth, the European broadband industry has been providing access to the Internet at capacities of between 16Mbit/s and 20Mbit/s, whereas SA’s fixed-line access is between 512Kbit/s and 10Mbit/s.

“We haven’t even got access at yesterday’s technologies,” he says.

Holdsworth says that with clearly defined goals, SA companies can start working towards implementing faster technologies that are more abundantly available. “They are driving Porches and Ferraris and we are riding bicycles and scooters,” he says.

He suggests the department of communications clearly stipulate obligations to provide Internet to rural communities, saying that there are ways to create achievable goals to bring access to all.

By 2015, 10% of the population could be covered by 20Mbit/s download speeds and 10Mbit/s upload speeds, Holdsworth says. Additionally, by 2020 SA could have 50% of the population connected at upload speeds of 40Mbit/s and 20Mbit/s download speeds.

However, he says private companies will not be able to do this on their own — public-private partnerships are needed to make it happen. “Government has been and still is investing in infrastructure, they just haven’t done it well yet,” he says.

Several regulatory interventions also need to happen, including the release of Telkom’s copper to the home infrastructure, also called the last mile. The process, called local-loop unbundling, could help smaller players compete and bring down the cost of Internet access, he says. — Candice Jones, TechCentral