Insufficient competition between mobile broadband operators is keeping prices higher than they should be and slowing adoption of the Internet by South African consumers, the Internet Service Providers’ Association (Ispa) said on Wednesday.
The association, which represents most South African ISPs, called on the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to “act decisively” to increase broadband penetration in the short term by “promoting greater competition” in the mobile data market.
“Government, the private sector and academia find themselves in rare accord when it comes to the social and economic benefits of broadband,” said Ispa regulatory advisor Dominic Cull in a statement. “It’s also clear that given the wide penetration of mobile that mobile broadband is going to offer the best option for bridging the affordability gap, which is the primary barrier to greater uptake and greater use of broadband in the short to medium term.”
Ispa quoted GSM Association figures, which suggest that 66% of South Africans are subscribers to mobile services. “Despite this relatively high rate of access to mobile services, the 2011 census revealed that 65% of households did not have access to the Internet [and] of the 35% that do … nearly half (16%) used mobile phones to connect.”
Said Cull: “The mobile networks already provide the ability to access broadband services. Physical access is not the barrier for the majority of the underserved: affordability of the services accessed is.”
He added that multiple studies, including some cited by Icasa, conclude that South Africans “pay too much for mobile data connectivity”.
“If government is serious about using broadband as a catalyst for growth, then it must use its policy, legislative and regulatory powers to open this space up to competition and bring the prices down. This was an approach which had clearly worked in the fixed-line environment and this success needed to be transferred into the mobile data market. It is hardly rocket science to figure out where the most effective short-term intervention would be.” — (c) 2013 NewsCentral Media