TechCentralTechCentral
    Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentral TechCentral
    NEWSLETTER
    • News

      Huawei, MTN to help build 5G-powered ‘smart mine’

      30 June 2022

      Clear the regulatory fog, ISPs urge Icasa

      30 June 2022

      Datatec to sell Analysys Mason for as much as R4.1-billion

      30 June 2022

      Power cuts hit small businesses hard

      30 June 2022

      E.tv: ‘We know we must vacate broadband spectrum bands’

      29 June 2022
    • World

      Bitcoin just had its worst quarter in a decade

      30 June 2022

      The NFT party is over

      30 June 2022

      Samsung beats TSMC to 3nm chip production

      30 June 2022

      Napster plots crypto comeback

      29 June 2022

      Pictures: Chinese spacecraft acquires images of entire planet of Mars

      29 June 2022
    • In-depth

      The great crypto crash: the fallout, and what happens next

      22 June 2022

      Goodbye, Internet Explorer – you really won’t be missed

      19 June 2022

      Oracle’s database dominance threatened by rise of cloud-first rivals

      13 June 2022

      Everything Apple announced at WWDC – in less than 500 words

      7 June 2022

      Sheryl Sandberg’s ad empire leaves a complicated legacy

      2 June 2022
    • Podcasts

      How your organisation can triage its information security risk

      22 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E06 – ‘Apple Silicon’

      15 June 2022

      The youth might just save us

      15 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E05 – ‘Nvidia: The Green Goblin’

      8 June 2022

      Everything PC S01E04 – ‘The story of Intel – part 2’

      1 June 2022
    • Opinion

      Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

      21 June 2022

      Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

      13 June 2022

      A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

      19 May 2022

      From spectrum to roads, why fixing SA’s problems is an uphill battle

      19 April 2022

      How AI is being deployed in the fight against cybercriminals

      8 April 2022
    • Company Hubs
      • 1-grid
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Amplitude
      • Atvance Intellect
      • Axiz
      • BOATech
      • CallMiner
      • Digital Generation
      • E4
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • IBM
      • Kyocera Document Solutions
      • Microsoft
      • Nutanix
      • One Trust
      • Pinnacle
      • Skybox Security
      • SkyWire
      • Tarsus on Demand
      • Videri Digital
      • Zendesk
    • Sections
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud computing
      • Consumer electronics
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Energy
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Motoring and transport
      • Public sector
      • Science
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home»Opinion»Duncan McLeod»Lessons for SA from the WEF report

    Lessons for SA from the WEF report

    Duncan McLeod By Duncan McLeod30 September 2015
    Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email

    Duncan-McLeod-180-profileIt is hugely encouraging to see South Africa rising up the World Economic Forum’s latest global competitive rankings as a result of the strides the country has made in getting more people onto the Internet and at faster speeds.

    It shows what is possible when competitive forces are set free. South Africa’s telecommunications industry today is robustly competitive, a stark change from just five years ago. Yet this has happened largely in spite of government, not because of it. With the right supporting policies in place, the sector has the potential to lead the transformation of the South African economy. Sadly, that might be expecting too much.

    In case you missed the news earlier, South Africa has climbed seven places in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitive Report 2015-2016.

    The good performance is largely thanks to an increased uptake of information and communications technology (ICT), and specifically access to more Internet bandwidth.

    Given private sector investment in recent years in undersea cables, in national and metropolitan fibre networks, and in fibre-to-the-home and mobile broadband infrastructure, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by the report’s findings. South Africans are taking advantage of better Internet infrastructure and the falling prices that have resulted from a rapid intensification in competition.

    Historically, South Africa’s telecoms industry was dominated by a fixed-line monopoly in Telkom and a cosy duopoly comprising MTN and Vodacom. None of them competed too aggressively on retail prices. Consumers were the losers.

    All that has changed dramatically in the past five years.

    Telkom lost its monopoly over international bandwidth, and then over national and metropolitan networks. It’s now facing the first real challenge to its dominance of the “last mile” into homes and businesses.

    In mobile, the licensing of Telkom Mobile, coupled with a Cell C that has decided it wants to compete aggressively for market share, ignited a price war.

    Enforced cuts to wholesale internetwork call fees — so-called mobile termination rates — helped the smaller players to be much more competitive, taking the fight to MTN and Vodacom, which have been forced to react with lower prices for consumers. Credit here must go to communications regulator Icasa for intervening so forcefully on termination rates. Mobile data prices, however, remain prohibitively high.

    The impact of all the competition is clear in the World Economic Forum’s latest report. But if the good news is to last, if South Africa is to repeat the performance in the years to come, government needs to come to the party — not by intervening in the sector, as some worry it’s planning to do — but by crafting policies that make it easier for telecoms companies to do business and to build the networks that South Africans demand.

    More people in South Africa are connected to the Internet and at higher speeds thanks to robust competition
    More people in South Africa are connected to the Internet and at higher speeds thanks to robust competition

    For years, government has allowed the digital television migration project — so crucial for freeing up radio frequency spectrum for broadband — to stall. And it’s taken inexcusably long to develop policies on allocating spectrum and removing red tape in the way of rapid network deployment. In short, the sector has achieved what it has in recent years without the help of government. Imagine what it could achieve with the state helping to grease the wheels of competition.

    Of course, great ICT infrastructure is only one component of creating a fast-growing and dynamic economy. The World Economic Forum report shows that in all too many areas, South Africa is still falling down — in some cases, badly so.

    Although the country has an efficient stock market, strong domestic competition and efficient transport infrastructure, the report identifies onerous government regulation, crime, an inflexible labour market, inefficient electricity supply and lack of quality education as key stumbling blocks to improving competitiveness.

    But at least the ICT sector is contributing (at last) to taking the country in the right direction. With the right support from government, it has the potential to be a template for how to get the rest of the economy onto a more competitive footing to the benefit of all South Africans.  — © 2015 NewsCentral Media

    • Duncan McLeod is TechCentral’s editor. Find him on Twitter
    • Subscribe to TechCentral’s free daily newsletter
    Duncan McLeod Icasa MTN Telkom Vodacom World Economic Forum
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email
    Previous ArticleBanks, home affairs kick off smart ID project
    Next Article Broadband pushes SA up world rankings

    Related Posts

    Huawei, MTN to help build 5G-powered ‘smart mine’

    30 June 2022

    Clear the regulatory fog, ISPs urge Icasa

    30 June 2022

    E.tv: ‘We know we must vacate broadband spectrum bands’

    29 June 2022
    Add A Comment

    Comments are closed.

    Promoted

    Think herding cats is tricky? Try herding a cloud

    29 June 2022

    How your business can help hybrid workers effectively

    28 June 2022

    Hands off our satellite spectrum!

    27 June 2022
    Opinion

    Has South Africa’s advertising industry lost its way?

    21 June 2022

    Rob Lith: What Icasa’s spectrum auction means for SA companies

    13 June 2022

    A proposed solution to crypto’s stablecoin problem

    19 May 2022

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2022 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.