Delegates attending a two-day wireless and mobile technology conference in Sandton agreed that increased competition and low-cost broadband access will boost SA`s low broadband demand.
The conference was held last week to review the latest ICT developments and innovations and their impact on businesses.
"Africa has less than 1% of the world`s broadband demand; Africa and SA are still in a broadband desert. Broadband penetration needs a major boost, and competition is the only force that will accelerate this," said Brian Neilson, director of BMI-TechKnowledge.
"It is now looking more likely that we will see new sources of competition in the fixed-line and Internet markets. Fixed wireless access will also have a major impact over the next two years. Broadband penetration in the residential sector will not automatically grow rapidly enough, but the new announcements from the Minister of Communications promise to force competition and hence lower prices, which in turn could drive growth rates to new levels" said Neilson.
IBM senior IT architect Gerard Dumont told delegates: "Service providers, mobile operators, franchise chains and companies need to offer their customers a fast and cost-effective way to connect to the Internet."
Neilson said: "South African large companies are adopting broadband at a faster rate than households. ADSL is already widely adopted in both large corporates and SMEs, and both groups are adopting fixed wireless Internet access rapidly, and at a rate that is set to accelerate in the next twelve months, despite the teething problems experienced."
While ITU points out that the average revenue per user for a broadband user can be up to seven times higher than for a narrowband user, this comment should be seen in the context of competitive market environments, whereas in the absence of effective competition in SA, prices of broadband would remain much higher than in other countries.
On mobile data applications, Neilson said that while there is no lack of innovation and user interest in South Africa, the high costs of telecommunications tariffs are holding SA back.
"There`s a need for innovative new applications to take off, and advanced messaging applications combined with entertainment remain the most promising ones for SA."
"South African corporates are already making value decisions, despite the high costs and slow access speeds, and are adopting mobile data applications in cases where the costs are justified."
He said that SMS volumes grew rapidly between 2001 and 2003 due to factors such as prices being managed sharply lower by operators. "The same is already beginning to happen with GPRS, as corporate pricing is being introduced at much lower levels per MB. This would also have an impact on the mass adoption of cellular Internet services and applications, which gives credence to BMI-T`s forecast scenario of 1 million `cellular internet` users in SA by 2007," he added.
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