Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

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

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      MVNO boom is reshaping South Africa’s mobile market

      12 June 2025

      South African law is failing gig-economy workers

      12 June 2025

      MultiChoice’s TV empire shrinks – but its ‘side hustles’ are holding strong

      12 June 2025

      MultiChoice is bleeding subscribers

      11 June 2025
    • World

      Qualcomm shows off new chip for AI smart glasses

      11 June 2025

      Trump tariffs to dim 2025 smartphone shipments

      4 June 2025

      Shrimp Jesus and the AI ad invasion

      4 June 2025

      Apple slams EU rules as ‘flawed and costly’ in major legal pushback

      2 June 2025

      Mark Zuckerberg has finally found a use for his metaverse

      30 May 2025
    • In-depth

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025

      South Africa unveils big state digital reform programme

      12 May 2025

      Is this the end of Google Search as we know it?

      12 May 2025
    • TCS

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025

      TCS+ | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

      6 June 2025

      TCS+ | AI is more than hype: Workday execs unpack real human impact

      4 June 2025

      TCS | Sentiv, and the story behind the buyout of Altron Nexus

      3 June 2025

      TCS | Signal restored: Unpacking the Blue Label and Cell C turnaround

      28 May 2025
    • Opinion

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025

      Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

      29 May 2025

      Solar panic? The truth about SSEG, fines and municipal rules

      14 April 2025

      Data protection must be crypto industry’s top priority

      9 April 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Internet and connectivity » South Africa doesn’t need faster internet

    South Africa doesn’t need faster internet

    Here’s the thing: we don’t need faster internet. Rather, we need to get existing technologies into the hands of more people.
    By Paul Colmer11 July 2023
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    The author, Wapa’s Paul Colmer

    When Ray Kurzweil coined the phrase “the second half of the chessboard”, he likely didn’t foresee it being used to describe the technology quandary we find ourselves in today.

    If you’re not familiar with the story, it goes something like this. A king once asked a wise man what he would like in payment for his services. The wise man presented the king with a chessboard, and said he would like one grain of rice that doubles for every one of the 64 squares on the board. Without thinking, the king accepted, not realising that by the time he reached the second half of the board, he’d be paying the man more rice than the kingdom could produce in a year.

    Moore’s Law suggested that processing speeds would roughly double every two years, and for the past decade or more, it’s held true. If you think about it, we’re also there or thereabouts in most aspects of technology, including internet speeds. From the early days of dial-up internet, today’s consumers are already getting used to surfing the web at close to 1Gbit/s or more, and there’s no sign that we’re going to slow down anytime soon.

    We now have super wideband audio systems that far exceed the top and bottom ranges of human hearing

    As such, every new square in our proverbial chessboard represents a quantum leap forward, as it was from 4G, to 5G and then 6G. But here’s the thing: we don’t need faster internet.

    Now that we’re in the second half of the chessboard, technology advances are getting to a point where they’re outgrowing their own usefulness. Take TV resolution, for example. We’ve watched the steady progression from the first HDTVs, yielding massive improvements from standard definition, to 720P, true high definition, and then 4K. Now we’re seeing a proliferation of 8K TVs, and even 16K TVs have been prototyped.

    Already with 8K, we’ve starting to reach the limits of what’s useful to us as humans. Our evolution has got us to the point where there’s not much benefit to the extra resolution because our eyes can’t perceive the differences between 8K and previous-generation 4K screens. Similarly, we now have super wideband audio systems that far exceed the top and bottom ranges of human hearing.

    Quantum leap

    Switching to internet speeds, 5G was touted as a quantum leap, and while technically it is, it’s the equivalent of our 8K screens. The hype has mostly been driven by manufacturers needing to keep pushing the envelope to have something “new and better” to sell, rather than addressing any real end-user needs. In fact, I’m not aware of any overwhelming 5G success stories anywhere in the world, let alone here at home, where the digital divide is wider than ever.

    As if that’s not enough, we haven’t even started hitting our stride when it comes to 5G adoption and some vendors are already talking up the coming 6G evolution, which South Africa is quite simply not ready for.

    What are we possibly going do with 6G? There’s a limit to how fast we move and process information. We can’t watch movies at three times the speed. 6G proponents will have you believe the next-gen technology will enable interpersonal human communication, using internal implants like Neuralink to transmit information faster than what our senses can handle.

    However, 6G uses extremely high millimetre-wave transmission, which doesn’t penetrate beyond free airspace, not even through human skin, which makes it useless for what the technology is touted to enable (unless we all start wearing external antennas).

    Sound familiar? After all, 5G was touted as the catalyst for 4IR (the fourth Industrial Revolution), but it hasn’t exactly set the world on fire.

    Mobile networks operators are having a “G-race”, but this is nothing new. Since the pioneering Wright brothers first flight, the aviation industry has yearned for speed, from propellers to jets, and peaking with the revolutionary Concorde hitting supersonic speeds in 1969.

    Ever since Concorde was decommissioned in 2003, and despite 30 years of massive advances in aviation technology, nobody has launched another commercial supersonic aircraft. Why? Because we simply don’t need to go that fast and the cost of doing so is too high.

    The moral of the story is this: we don’t need to rush headlong into the second half of the chessboard when we haven’t even started to saturate society with the technology we already have. We don’t need 6G – or even 5G; what we need is every person connected to 4G internet, to have affordable access to a smartphone, and to shrink the digital divide.

    • The author, Paul Colmer, is executive committee member at the Wireless Access Providers’ Association

    Get TechCentral’s daily newsletter



    Paul Colmer Wapa
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleOECD warns of AI-induced jobs bloodbath
    Next Article Eskom burning more diesel as demand soars

    Related Posts

    What to expect at Icasa’s next big spectrum sale

    5 June 2025

    South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

    2 June 2025

    Wapaloza 2025 to spotlight the future of connectivity in South Africa

    13 May 2025
    Company News

    Building a cyber-resilient culture from the boardroom to the front lines

    12 June 2025

    How South Africa’s municipalities are finally getting smart

    12 June 2025

    Ransomware roulette: pay up or power through?

    11 June 2025
    Opinion

    Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

    2 June 2025

    South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

    2 June 2025

    Digital giants boost South African news media – and get blamed for it

    29 May 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

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

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

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