Government is forging ahead with plans to lay a West Coast undersea cable in partnership with the private sector that will complement the East Coast projects, say ministers Alec Erwin and Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.
Speaking at a parliamentary media briefing today, the two ministers, of public enterprises and communications, respectively, emphasised their departments were now working closely together to bring co-ordination to the seemingly disparate undersea cable projects being proposed by the private and public sectors.
The briefing was conducted following Friday's State of the Nation address by president Thabo Mbeki and dealt with infrastructure issues, including that of ICT, energy, and transportation.
"We are currently addressing how the Nepad (New Economic Policy for Africa's Development) East Coast project and the West Coast cable can complement each other. We will not prefer one over the other," Matsepe-Cassaburri said.
Government's new broadband supplier, Broadband Infraco, which still has to be licensed, is expected to lay two 3.8Tb cables, one to Brazil and the other to Europe.
Erwin said further announcements would be made in the near future, but work such as planning and discussions between government and the private sector were ongoing. He also said, in all probability, the European link would be built first.
"However, from a strategic perspective, we will build a cable to Brazil," Erwin said.
Digital migration
As stated by Mbeki, about 50% of the total population should be able to receive digital broadcast signals at the planned switch-on in November, as part of the three-year migration strategy. This will entail people having to obtain set-top boxes, essentially decoders, for the signal by then.
Matsepe-Casaburri said her department has been investigating the issue of whether to subsidise the cost of the set-top boxes, especially for the poor.
"We have examined what other countries have done and we should be taking our recommendations to Cabinet within the next few months, or even this month, with a plan to help the poor buy set-top boxes," she said.
The Department of Communications (DOC) will launch a publicity campaign to educate the broader public about digital migration. It has also held discussions with manufacturers that will make the set-top boxes in this country.
Telecoms study
As part of its "Programme of Action", the DOC will conduct a study on the cost of telecommunications and other factors, such as quality, in order to benchmark SA.
"Costs have not been reduced as drastically as we would have liked," DOC director-general Lyndall Shope-Mafole said. "However, there are other facts, particularly quality, that is very important, especially in the BPO [business process outsourcing] sector," she said.
Shope-Mafole said the DOC had noticed that quality of calls had suffered, particularly in those countries that had managed to slash their telecommunications costs.
Sentech wireless
Government has allocated national signal distributor Sentech R500 million to enable it to provide wireless Internet connectivity, especially to health clinics, schools, libraries, post offices and other services in outlying areas.
Matsepe-Casaburri said one of the aims of this Sentech project was to connect the Dinaledi schools - those schools earmarked to provide increased maths and science learning.
Erwin said the country was ahead of the plan to reduce electricity consumption by 10%, with the majority of the savings coming from industry. However, plans to increase generation and to encourage consumers to save were continuing.
He said a pebble-bed nuclear reactor should come into operation in 2013, "... all things going well".
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