Delegates at IWeek 2006 yesterday heard encouraging noises on the bandwidth and Internet front from the opening speakers.
The conference featured keynotes from deputy communications minister Roy Padayachie; Mark Shuttleworth, from HBD Venture Capital; and Esther Dyson, Internet guru and chairperson of EdVenture Holdings, on its first day at Kyalami Castle, Johannesburg. The event is a joint initiative between the Internet Service Providers Association and UniForum SA.
Padayachie said the current Internet landscape is characterised by contradiction.
"The present conjuncture has both very depressing elements and most exciting opportunities," he said. "The most depressing feature, no doubt, is the high cost of international bandwidth. Our costs are between six and eight times greater than other emerging countries. This is unacceptable and the president has promised to address it."
Padayachie also acknowledged that Telkom`s monopoly fell into the bad news category, but added that greater opportunities for competition in the telecoms market are around the corner. He said the appointment of a broadband advisory council and the unbundling of the local loop were positive steps towards breaking Telkom`s monopoly.
Global best practices
Shuttleworth presented his experiences of global best practices in ICT, including examples of the regulatory and market landscapes in South Korea, Spain, Brazil, China and Indonesia.
"South Korea has the world`s cheapest broadband and that has transformed not only how the government can communicate with its people, but has also spawned the largest online gaming culture in the world," he said.
"Brazil, on the other hand, is passionate about culture and has a national programme of telecentres which act both as centres of digital literacy, but, more importantly, as digital hubs for people to create and share."
Shuttleworth said the three anchors to an IT strategy were skills development to enable the creation of human and intellectual capital; free and open source software for creating an effective infrastructure; and bandwidth, which is the "lifeblood that turns computers from mere tools into pools of talent and experience". But he added that management training was essential for people to cope with the high growth in the ICT industry.
Customers as competitors
Dyson emphasised that individuals should be able to resell Internet services, an opinion she expressed on Sunday at president Thabo Mbeki`s International Advisory Council, of which she is a member.
"Suppose you find that Internet is too expensive, and you decide to share the cost with four of your neighbours and cut the cost that way. The consensus [among the Presidential Advisory Council] was that it was certainly a good idea and wasn`t against regulations.
"No one was really sure whether it was against the terms of service of the ISPs, but there was definitely an understanding that it would be a good idea. At the end of the conference I told the assembled press (who I hope publish this far and wide), that if you want to resell your landline Internet over a WiFi service to whoever wants it, you`re free to do so.
"The ISPs may not like this at first, but they will discover that it makes their services far more attractive - it will cut their prices by 80% - and they can afford to do that because of lower marketing costs. That`s happened in every market. So not only is it good that there`s competition from Neotel, it`s also good to have competition from customers as resellers."
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