Do the maths

Government's plan to roll out broadband to only eight municipalities in three years means SA will never reach its own goals, unless government is hoping the private sector will jump in and rescue it.

It's not tricky to reach this conclusion: even the simplest application shows 240-odd municipalities will likely fall under government's ubiquitous broadband plan. At eight municipalities over a period of three years, the country is looking at just more than 100 years to deliver broadband to all.

That's way longer than the five years the country has left to meet its plan of getting everyone online. And it puts the target of increasing this speed to world-class levels by 2030 hopelessly out of reach.

Granted, some of the larger municipalities - Johannesburg and Cape Town, most notably - have already started with broadband plans, so those can be taken out of the equation. I suppose we can also remove the bulk of Gauteng, because it too has a provincial broadband plan.

So, let's call it - to be fair - 265 municipalities across the country. That's a figure I get to by stripping the 12 municipalities in Gauteng and the City of Cape Town out of government's 278-muncipality task.

Gauteng is divided into three metropolitan municipalities: the City of Johannesburg, the City of Tshwane and Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipalities, as well as two district municipalities, which are further subdivided into seven local municipalities.

Okay, there may be some double-counting in my calculation, with the metros, district municipalities and local municipalities. Although, I think anyone can be forgiven for that oversight because it's not like government has actually put a plan on the table.

Even stripping all those out, there are still more than 200 municipalities in the equation. Applying basic mathematics to just the local municipalities that need to be hooked up: 80 years. I'd be surprised if I'm not dead by the time this plan is fully rolled out.

And it is a great plan; it's truly brilliant: broadband for all. Yet, SA Connect hasn't really gotten off the ground since former communications minister Yunus Carrim inked it into being two years ago. That's two years the country has wasted.

And, by government's own admission, it has fallen quite behind and has yet to get around to issuing tenders for the eight municipalities for which Telkom is designated as lead agency, but not appointed as such. Apparently, the private sector will also be involved in this roll-out.

Deputy telecommunications and postal services minister Hlengiwe Mkhize says this is because there is a lack of private sector involvement, a situation she ascribes to "too many stop-and-go kinds of moves on the part of government, which has in a way made the private sector cynical".

If government wants to meet its objectives, it is going to have to enable the private sector to boost broadband further.

If government wants to meet its objectives, it is going to have to enable the private sector to boost broadband further. It needs to free up spectrum in the lower end of the frequency range, and to do that, it needs to move off analogue TV and onto the more spectrum-efficient digital signal.

Yeah, about that. SA has been moving towards digital TV since 2006, when it first signed the International Telecommunication Union's (ITU's) agreement. The international deadline for migration is 17 June - less than a month away.

And where is SA? Well, the network is ready, and the signal is out there. But endless interference in government policy and a lack of technical know-how and political will means SA is unlikely to migrate for several more years.

While the ITU's deadline is no great shakes - all it means is some people living near the borders may be subjected to Uncle Bob's TV Inc - it does mean SA will be embarrassed (again) internationally and won't be able to benefit from much-needed extra spectrum.

I'm seeing a circular pattern here, one in which government's failure to get along with the private sector with one project means it is going to miss the deadlines for another project royally.

Is it too late? No, it's never too late for broadband. But, if SA Inc wants to capitalise on all that is good about fully joining the digital economy, some government butts need to be kicked into gear. Here's hoping.