Digital focus July Aug issue by Digital Focus

4th Edition

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July-August 2014

The World Wide Web

Bluetooth

years of tech innovations VoIP

Java

Web based mail

The first mobile phone with a WAP browser.

Multicore Processor GPS Broadband internet

Karoo Array Telescope (or MeerKAT)

Satelliite TV

ARTHuR OLDSTuCk

fRAcO IORITIZEs RAL OADbAND

hIEvING RURAL OADbAND

DDLED GRATION

OvATION fOR vIcE DELIvERy

OPTING E SAAS ODEL

Shuttleworthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ubuntu software

2010 FIFA World Cup

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Information Systems Review & Advisory Services SAS Business Analytics ERP Solutions (Specializing in SAP) Information Systems Review & Advisory Business Services Intelligence Information Systems Testing Business Analytics & Forecasting (Specializing in SAS Analytics)

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Contents

Managing editor Nkhume Kudzingana

4th Edition I July-Agust 2014

Editor Tinyiko Valoyi Contributors Steven Maubane Eugene Morokolo Robert Nkuna Eric Osiakwan Editing and proof reading Makatilemedia Sales and marketing Nthabiseng Khoza Website design Lethabo Mashike Publisher Pfamoni Media 249 Basden Avenue, Crystal Park One Block O, Lyttelton Manor, Centurion, 0157 Gauteng, South Africa Tel: (+27) 012 664 5181 Fax: (+27) 012 664 7920 Web: www.saitnews.co.za Subscriptions and advertising nthabiseng@pfamoni.co.za Letters to the editor editor@digitalfocus.co.za Repro and printing Phethego Advertising and Markerting, 850 Horseshoe street, Littlefalls Tel: (+27) 011 675 2800 (+27) 082 574 5696 Directors Nkhume Kudzingana (Managing) Robert Nkuna (Non-executive) Tinyiko Valoyi (Editorial)

Cover Story

20 years of ICT innovation in new South Africa

Editorial 4

Editor’s Note

Innovation 6

20 years of ICT innovation in new South Africa

How electronic payments grew Nigeria’s economy

2014 election battle takes to the internet

Policy 16

Renewing SA’s antiqued ICT policies

How electronic payments grew Nigeria’s economy

Is party over for SA’s mobile duopoly?

Telecommunications 20

Is party over for SA’s mobile duopoly?

Nashua Mobile closes shop

MNOs and banks stifles mobile payments

New broadcasters licensed to enter the market

Profile 26

One Connect steams ahead

SA’s Cisco expert journey to the top

Copyright All material published by Pfamoni Media (Pty) Ltd is copyright and belongs to Pfamoni Media (Pty) Ltd, unless otherwise indicated. No part of the material may be quoted, photocopied, reproduced or stored electronically without prior written permission.

How a blind advocate beat the odds

SA’s bio-economy focussed on growth

Neither the magazine, the publisher or the editor can be held legally liable in any way for damages of any kind whatsoever arising directly or indirectly from any facts or information provided or omitted in these pages or from any other statements made or withheld by this publication. Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by Pfamoni Media (Pty) Ltd.

Ekurhuleni in broadband drive

DST connects Kuruman schools to wireless mesh

Tshwane to rollout 600 hotspots

Can SA’s broadband plan deliver affordable access

SA’s Cisco expert journey to the top

Broadband

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Editor’s Note

elcome to another edition of Digital Focus. We continue to produce a publication of choice that will go a long way to revolutionize the ICT sector. We will continue with the production of digital focus targeting thought leaders in throughout the value chain of the ICT sector. This edition brings the latest innovations in the sector. Among others, we cover recent experience on the use of ICT in the national elections, progress with the rollout of Tshwane broadband, and of course, the plan by the Department of Science and Technology to rollout broadband in rural areas. These activities confirm that both government and industry are hard at work to create an e-society. As indicated in our previous editorials, the success of this journey towards an e-society will depend on active collaboration among stakeholders. As part of this, government will need to take a lead by creating policy and regulatory certainty. In the wake of the replacement

of the old Department of Communications by the Department of Telecommunications and Postal services, we trust that government will do everything possible to create certainty, predictability and stability. We hope that sooner rather than later, government will also clarify the overlaps between this department and the new department of communications, established in place of the former Government Communications and Information System (GCIS). Digital Focus will continue to follow developments in this space, hoping that no iota of time will be wasted. South Africa has to move with necessary speed to catch up with countries that are ahead of us both the developing and developed world. We cannot afford any further delays in key programmes such as Digital Terrestrial TV, spectrum licensing and the rollout of broadband for all. Also in this issue we the have a number of innovations that have propelled South Africa as a country forward. Looking back 20 years on into our democracy, organisations such as MTN and Vodacom have certainly made headway not only in the country but on the continent and worldwide as well. The Square Kilometre Array Radio Telescope (SKA) set to be the largest telescope in the world, is expected to revolutionise our understanding of the universe and the Laws of fundamental physics. Having been just an observer in 2001, South Africa will host the project along with Australia.

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Former deputy minister of department of communications Michael Masutha made time to sit down with us to talk more broadly about growing up partially blind. He highlighted department’s envisioned future about the Bio-Economy and the importance of South Africa’s youth taking full force of technology and using education to its advantage. Technological innovations of a country are at most dependent on the type of skills produced. Ofentse Mokhutswane, South Africa’s first certified black CCIE professional says the youth of South Africa need to be exposed to IT as a viable career option as much as many other fields.

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Leader

1994

MTN, Africa’s mobile giant receives its license and starts operating as M-Cel

1995

Multichoice launches payTV service

2006

Neotel launches commercial services

2008

Altech wins High Court ruling against Icasa which declared that VANS can build own infrastructure

2009

SEACOM launches services on its east african submarine cable

2012

South Africa is recommended as the preferred site to host the ¤2 billion SKA telescope

Innovation

20 years of ICT innovation in new South Africa South Africa’s ICT sector has come a long way since the start of a new democratic dispensation in 1994. As the country celebrates 20 years since the end of apartheid, we take a moment to reflect on some of the amazing innovations and strides that the ICT sector has taken in the past 20 years. We look at some of the most innovative and bold ICT initiatives that have come out of the new South Africa. We also look at some of the global ICT businesses that have been founded out of the new South Africa. MTN emerges as a global mobile operator

When M-Cell was awarded the second GSM operator license in 1994, few imagined that the small Johannesburg based company that was awarded a license in 1993 would grow to become the global mobile giant that it is today. M-Cell was a subsidiary of Johnnic, a media conglomerate that alongside M-Net had managed to secure a GSM license after many years of lobbying the South African government. It changed its name from M-Cell to MTN Group in October 2002. Under the leadership of Phuthuma Nhleko, a former investment banker with Standard Bank’s corporate finance team who took the rains at MTN in 2002, the operator grew from

being just a South African mobile operator to a multinational. By 1998, it had acquired licenses in a few African counties including Uganda, Rwanda, and Swaziland. MTN eventually entered the Cameroon and Nigerian market in 2002 - 2003, a move that was seen as risky at the time but proved to be one of its most strategic investment decisions. In 2006 MTN concluded a $5,5 billion takeover of Investcom, an operator based in the Middleeast with assets in countries including Phuthuma Nhleko, former MTN Chief Executive Officer

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innovation

Benin, Cyprus, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. Today, MTN is among the top 15 mobile operators in the world with over 210 million subscribers and operates in more than 21 countries in Africa and the Middle-east. The MTN group boosts over $14 billion annual revenues.

Internet Solutions becomes SA’s biggest corporate ISP

Back in 1993, As the Internet began to emerge as a global platform for communications nad e-commerce; a small startup called Internet Solutions (IS) was plotting to introduce corporate South Africa to the Internet. In 1994, IS installed what was the first fibre link connecting South Africa to the US over the SAT2 cable network. In 1997, IS was acquired by Dimension Data. By 2012, IS’s international bandwidth had grown to 210 Gbps with capacity over multiple sub-marine cables including SEACOM, SAT-3 and 58 PoPs in Africa. Internet Solutions has grown from humble beginnings to one of SA’s largest corporate ISP with over 1000 customers and R1 billion in revenue.

SA pioneers pre-paid airtime

As Vodacom/MTN were launching their GSM networks back in 1994, there were many who feared that only the rich could afford its mobile service. Vodacom’s own projections did not anticipate getting more than a mere 250,000 subscribers in its first 2 years of operation. The SA mobile operators quickly realized that a pre-paid revenue model was crucial for their success in Africa. A billing system based on what became known as Pay-as-you-go billing model was implemented and

“

South Africa’s communications infrastructure’s readiness was questionable when FIFA president, Sepp Blatter announced that FIFA had awarded the rights to host the 2010 World Cup to South Africa.

Leader

questionable when FIFA president, Sepp Blatter announced that FIFA had awarded the rights to host the 2010 World Cup to South Africa. Many of the stadiums and broadcasting centers required massive upgrades to its telecommunications infrastructure to support the stringent requirements of FIFA and cope with bandwidth intensive digital broadcasts of matches and thousands of fans using their 3G enabled smartphones. Telkom was assigned the role of ensuring that all 2010 World Cup host cities and venues were ready for this task. To accomplish this, Telkom set out on a task to deploy a highspeed fibre optic network linking all host cities and venues to its terrestrial long distance network. Mobile operators had to upgrade their mobile networks in the venues to cope with increased volumes. The Nasrec broadcasting center’s fibre optic links were upgraded to cope with the many TV channels that were going to be based in SA during the month long tournament.

Launch of SEACOM leads to a broadband explosion instantly became a popular option for customers who really liked the flexibility and predictability of their phone bill. Airtime vouchers to load airtime became an instant hit in many markets where Vodacom and MTN operated. Today, many countries have implemented pre-paid or Pay-as-yougo billing models across many sectors including telecommunications, pay-TV and even utilities like electricity and gas.

A privately funded sub-marine fibre optic cable (1,2 Terabits per second) spanning over 12,000 km on the east coast of Africa was announced back in June 2007 by a relatively unknown group of investors. It emerged later that Herakles, a New York backed investment company was backing the cable.

World Cup 2010 and ICT infrastructure Like the stadiums and transport networks required to host a successful FIFA World Cup, South Africa’s communications infrastructure’s readiness was

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Leader

By 2007, the cable had reached financial close at $650 million dollars and it was announced that Remgro, Shanduka, Convergence Partners were taking 50% equity while the balance of 50% came from IPS of Aga Khan Foundation and Herakles Telecoms LLC. The cable was commissioned in Feb 2010, just in time for the FIFA 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Multichoice launches a panAfrican satellite pay-TV operator

Back in the 1990s, Naspers had been flirting with the idea of introducing a digital satellite pay-TV network in South Africa. On the 6th October 1995, Dstv launched from humble beginnings with 17 TV channels and 100, 000 subscribers. Today Dstv service boosts over 4,41 million subscribers, 119 channels and operate in some 50 African countries.

Innovation

The Minister of Communications then, the late Ms. Ivy MatsepeCasaburri, announced that a gradual relaxation of restrictions would allow Value Added Network service providers (VANS) to provide Voice over IP (VoIP) calls over their data networks to South African customers. She went further to announce that VANS providers would be allowed to self-provide infrastructure, a privilege that was until then only reserved for Telkom and the mobile operators.

The Square Kilometer Array (SKA) project

M-Web’s launch of uncapped ADSL Internet

When then CEO of M-Web, Rudi Jansen announced the launch of its uncapped ADSL back in 2010, many thought he was out of his mind and argued that this was not sustainable in South Africa. Others vowed that it would be limited in some form or another. Rudi had pulled a fast one in the ISP sector after reluctance by many in the sector including Telkom to introduce uncapped services. This innovation catapulted South Africa to be on par with some of its counterparts in the developing world. Today, uncapped broadband is a norm in the fixed line ADSL market. Wireless broadband providers and mobile operators have also launched their own uncapped products.

Neotel is licensed as Second Network Operator in SA Neotel (Pty) Ltd., previously SNO Tele-communications, is the second national operator (SNO) for fixed line telecommunication services in South Africa. It was unveiled on 31 August 2006 in northern Johannesburg. Neotel is South Africa’s first direct telecommunications competitor to the current telecommunications parastatal, Telkom.

Altech’s landmark case force Minister to allow VANS to build own infrastructure

After 10 years of managed liberalization, a government policy designed to protect state monopoly, Telkom from competition through gradual deregulation of the market.

The Square Kilometer Array Radio Telescope (SKA) will be the largest telescope in the world, and will revolutionize our understanding of the universe and the Laws of fundamental physics. Back in 2001, South Africa decided to join the SKA project, initially as just an observer. The SKA project had been running for more than 10 years. Within five years, South Africa was short-listed in 2006 for the site selection process and then six years later (2012) was recommended as the preferred site to host the larger portion of the SKA. South Africa’s participation in a scientific endeavor to discover more about our planet through space exploration is an affirmation of Africa’s coming of age in the world of science and technology. The SKA project will cost over ¤2 billion and is expected to be operational in 2020.

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∑ World 1st digital laser scanner by CSIR ∑ Mark Shuttleworth became first African to go to space ∑ Didata, a global IT giant sold to Japan’s NTT in a $3,2 billion transaction ∑ FNB wins a global most innovative bank in the world award in 2012. ∑ The launch of Mixt, a social network for feature phones with 7,4 million users ∑ SA MNOs amongst first to launch 3G/HSPA service ∑ SARS launched e-Filling and becomes most successful e-Govt service ∑ Electronic Communications Act came into effect in 2004

BROADBAND

Connectivity

www.sas.com/sa

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INNOVATION

How electronic payments grew Nigeria’s economy By Liam Mc Dermott, Stanchion Payment Solutions ith Nigeria having recently eclipsed South Africa as the continent’s biggest economy, it is worth taking a look the nation’s progress from the perspective of a service which is indispensable to the modern way of life – electronic payments. And electronic payments, in turn, depend on suitable telecommunications and banking infrastructure.

W 10

The pace of change in Nigeria is remarkable and, having been in the country for frequent periods around the early 2000s as part of the birth of the modern payments industry in that country, change is nowhere more noticeable than in the retail banking sector. Having recently returned there this year in a payments consultant capacity, the benefit of such an extended hiatus is the comparison of two distanced snapshots: the differences are quite stark and immediately noticeable.

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From a largely cash-based society ten years ago, where wads of cash or travellers’ cheques were a necessity for visitors, and where you’d be lucky to find a single MasterCard machine (which would connect directly to America), today ATMs and credit card Point-of-Sale devices are everywhere. A decade ago, there were almost no electronic payment systems at all. The few ATMs were ‘through-the-wall’ types at bank branches, and there was little if not no remote or even inter-

INNOVATION

bank connectivity. By the same token, telecommunications were pretty poor; a walk on the streets would reveal why, with telephone wires festooned on poles, or attached in an entirely haphazard fashion to the side of buildings. Companies generally established their own connectivity using microwave towers, rather than wait on the speed of government to improve communications. From a herd of nearly a hundred banks, each operating within a limited fiefdom, the Central Bank of Nigeria promulgated policy in 2005 that saw the sector consolidated down to the just 22 currently in play. This process is regarded as a definitive case study for the success of downscaling (the goal being to align with the modern trend of moving from a banking system dominated by many small and relatively unstable banks, to a system with a few bigger and more reliable banks. South Africa arguably went through a similar exercise in the Retail Banking sector a couple of decades ago). But this exercise has another, more organic effect on customers. In the case of ATMs, the absence of an interlinking switch, which would allow customers from a bank in one area to withdraw cash from a bank in another, was hampered by a large and cumbersome pool of possible member banks. Together with the consolidation of the organisations, such a facility – considered indispensable for modern banking - was introduced. Similarly, credit card machines just didn’t exist en masse and were not widely available, relying as they do on a connection from the merchant to the card issuer (the bank) and the payment system provider. These connections, of course, depend on telecommunications infrastructure. A sense of perspective is required where Nigerian telecommunications is concerned. The country has a population of nearly 170 million people, but it has just over 2.5 million landlines today. It is thanks to the revolution of mobile telephony that the foundations for better payments systems were laid – today, there are 164 million GSM

Population – 170 million people GDP – 80.22 trillion naira, or $509.9 billion 24th biggest economy in the world e-commerce, mobile phones and “Nollywood” film industry account for 1.4 percent of GDP

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lines and nearly 15 million CDMA (3G) connections. With all this happening in the banking and telecommunications sectors, something else started to occur which has almost certainly played a role in helping Nigeria to its position as the continent’s biggest economy. More people were getting ‘banked’, or gaining access to banking services. Transaction volumes have been increasing exponentially – and when people are banked and transactions begin to flow freely, the economy benefits due to increased consumer participation in both the retail and retail-banking sectors. The positive effect of a modern, well-managed payments system manifests in various ways. For example, those who have been to Nigeria’s capital, Abuja (especially a decade or more ago) will remember chaotic roads mostly in a state of disrepair; traffic jams on a colossal scale; and an almost complete absence of traffic lights. Roads are to an extent a picture of what’s going on in a country. Today, the situation couldn’t be more different. New tarmac can be seen everywhere. Traffic management is vastly improved (although getting off ‘The Island’ the traffic can still be a challenge). There are high-rises climbing into the sky. People from the regions go to Lagos to spend their holidays. Even the airport terminal is undergoing a wide-scale upgrade. The Nigerian retail economy no longer depends on cash alone, but has the payments systems to support modern means of transacting, delivering improved security and convenience and easing the process of doing business, both locally and foreign investment based. The situation is geared for continued strong growth in the foreseeable future - and that means Nigeria is an economic power to be reckoned with. Stanchion Payment Solutions is a respected electronic funds transfer (EFT) consultancy and systems integrator offering specialised custom development, technical, regulatory and financial skills. Stanchion has implemented, enhanced and managed payment systems around the world.

INNOVATION

2014 ELECTION REVIEW The 2014 elections have proven to be the most interesting and hotly contested elections since 1994. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspect of these elections was the role of social media and internet as a communications platform for both political parties contesting the elections as well as the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).

2014 election battle takes to the internet

igital Focus spoke to Marco Granelli, Senior Manager at the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) about the role of social media during the 2014 election season. According Granelli, the most challenging aspect for the elections was to look at the best way to encourage voter registration. “Certainly the IEC in the previous

elections had used all the media platforms at its disposal including digital channels and social media to reach voters. However social media has grown so much in the country that it has taken a far bigger prominence in our communications strategy compared to the previous elections. Social media has become a crucial tool of communications especially with regards to reaching the youth.”

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The IEC is not the only organisation that has taken up the use of social media; political parties also took their campaigns online. Twitter and Facebook are amongst the most popular platforms to launch election campaigns and reach more people around the country. The African National Congress (ANC), Agang SA, Democratic Alliance (DA), and Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF); are the top four parties that have used social media to their advantage. Granelli adds that from the IEC’s perspective choosing the right social media platform to disseminate information has become significant especially when looking at ways to vary the information coming out. “For us this is actually a growth opportunity and we are using this as a stepping stone for future election campaigns. What we looked at was the most popular social media platforms that we could channel our focus on. Facebook was an obvious platform, due to its popularity amongst our target audience.”

INNOVATION

The social media platforms show quite some interesting numbers between the top four parties in the country by followers. By far the ANC has used Twitter and facebook to its advantage the most followed by the DA. The ANC facebook page has 197,176 likes, the DA is close second with 135,001. The two new political parties that contested the 2014 elections and used social media to their best advantage are Agang SA, which was led by Mamphela Ramphele, along with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) led by Julius Malema. The EFF has 90,438 likes while Agang SA has 35, 228 likes on their facebook pages. The numbers to some extent have shown how the population voted except for Agang SA who suffered heavy losses despite being popular on social media platforms. Political leaders are also took to the internet and many launched twitter accounts to talk to their followers. All these developments indicate how these parties used the power of the internet. The IEC made headway in making sure it was in all the most popular sites. “We certainly made sure that we were definitely out there and getting into all the advertising and social network spaces. Twitter, Mxit even messages on Please Call Me’s and Mobile Apps.” Granelli adds that from a marketing perspective the power of social media is that of instant feedback. “Social media gives you an added advantage of knowing how well your campaign is going by just looking at the Likes on Facebook or even the Retweets on Twitter.” Twitter is popular for its hashtags and to follow trending topics of the day. The ANC has and outright majority with over 139,369 followers. The DA comes second with over 85,998 followers, Agang SA and the EFF are trailing each other with 46,524 and 46,752 followers each. Traditional methods however still had a big role to play in a country such as South Africa. Due to the different demographics, there is a split between urban and rural dwellers and there has to be an assortment of engaging

Most popular SA political parties on Facebook Economic Freedom Fighters

20%

Democratic Alliance

30%

Agang-SA

48% African National Congress

Most popular SA political parties on Twitter Economic Freedom Fighters

15%

Democratic Alliance

15%

27%

Agang-SA

43% African National Congress Top Four South African political parties with high Online Presence (at time of going to print) Political Party

Facebook

Twitter

ANC

197,176

139,369

135,001

85,998

EFF

90,438

46,752

Agang SA

35, 228

46,524

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INNOVATION

with people on different social scales. “Whichever way you look at it, mobile phones are a major part of South African society and that is where we have also looked at mobile spaces, whereas newspapers may not be as effective as we want. The same goes with television and radio which happens to stretch wider and appeal to more people” says Granelli. Elections for many news agencies in any country are always an exciting time for the journalists covering the events. What news agencies in South Africa have done recently is to have dedicated mobile apps and sections on their stations and websites to cover election related events. News24.com and ENCA (24-hour news channel) in particular had dedicated staff to report on different parties around the country as well as major events that could unfold leading up to, during and after the elections. Looking at the DA’s Ayisafani adverts that generated a lot of controversy following the decision by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) to ban it from being broadcast on TV. The DA decided to release this controversial advert that depicts the ANC of Mandela as being very different from today’s ANC on YouTube and instantly received over 700,000 hits. If there was to be any sign that traditional TV broadcasting is facing a new challenger in the form of Youtube and other online video platforms, the Ayisafani advert gives

Social media gives you an added advantage of knowing how well your campaign is going by just looking at the Likes on Facebook or even the Retweets on Twitter. a very interesting glimpse into the future of broadcasting. This is another example of how new internet channels are being used to complement and even replace television broadcasting. On the other hand the verification process regarding the voting process is not a familiar process to many people. The IEC has a responsibility to

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educate the nation on the electrocal process. “As part of our education process, we produce various education materials including pamphlets explaining the process to help give people confidence in the electoral process and its outcome”. The IEC also made good on developing a mobile app to provide voters with additional information about the election. The app which managed to get 10 000 downloads, included a feature to allow voter’s to verify their voter registration details, finding a voting station and being informed on the results as they came in. This App was very useful to political parties, media, election observers as well as the general public by providing voting results summarised up to a voting station level for both the national and provincial elections. The IEC tweeted, replied and gave updates about results coming in from around the country. The Facebook page also had continuous interaction with voters. Facebook did have major traffic flow from the voters due to the unlimited comments and posts people could upload. Granelli concludes that moving forward in future there could possibly be a move towards digital voting. “I am certain, that future will be in our lifetime, there have been green papers looking at digital voting around the world and that certainly tells us that we could be very close, I hope I am still around to experience it”.

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POLICY

Renewing SA’s antiqued ICT policies

Yunus Carim, former Minister of Communications

he promise made by former Minister of Communications, Hon. Yunus Carim to table a newly revised Green Paper on the National Integrated ICT policy before the past elections in May 2014 was fulfilled on the 3rd of March 2014. The Minister convened a stakeholder seminar at Emperor’s Palace in Johannesburg that was well attended by industry players from telecommunications, broadcasting and information technology sectors. Although this is commendable, one cannot help but wonder why it took South Africa so long to renew our antiqued ICT policies. Time in the technology world moves so fast, so much so that every 6 months, vendors are often expected to introduce new products and innovations that can fundamentally change the way we

live, work and play. Well-established and respected business models are rendered absolute in a few years through game changing innovations. It is intriguing to imagine that, it has been nearly 15 years since South Africa’s ICT policies were revised back in 1999. In those 15 years, the world has seen the introduction of ground-breaking innovations that affect the whole world. ∑ Facebook was launched in 2004. ∑ Twitter was launched in 2006. ∑ The iPhone was unveiled in June 2007. ∑ Google Android was unveiled in 2008. ∑ WhatsApp was launched in 2009. ∑ Cloud computing, Big Data were all introduced in the last 10 years. It is thus crucial that in our latest

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attempt to re-draft our ICT policies, we take cognisance of where the rest of the world is moving in terms of the role of ICT in socio-economic development. It is also crucial to part ways with old ways of thinking regarding the manner in which we regulate and license the ICT sector as the traditional divide between data, voice and video get blurred and new business models emerge.

Convergence and net neutrality

Today, there is no doubt that convergence is driving innovation in communication and broadcasting. A single IP based network is emerging as the conduit through which video, voice and data is consumed. The significance of voice is also diminishing as many people transition

POLICY

their communication to Instant Messaging platforms such as BBM, WhatsApp, WeChat and Viber as well as social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. WhatsApp is planning to launch voice calls on their platform before year-end. It will be interesting to see how South African mobile operators will react to this. Operators should not dictate the nature of traffic that should be carried over their network in order to charge higher punitive rates for certain kinds of traffic. All traffic transported over an IP network should be treated equally and therefore priced through a transparent and common pricing framework.

Video-on-Demand and IPTV

New video platforms emerging such as Youtube, iRokoTV, Dstv Catch up and others are providing an alternative to broadcasters. Increasingly, video platforms are complementing TV channels and in some cases completely replacing them. It is crucial for regulators to ensure that these video platforms are allowed to flourish without being throttled by mobile operators and ISPs. Amazon, Apple and Google have all launched their video devices and content platforms. It is thus crucial for the new policy to embrace convergence and not seek to drive the traditional divides of telecommunications, broadcasting and e-commerce. There should be no attempt to prescribe what type of content should be carried over IP networks. The current practice by mobile operators to discriminate against voice over IP traffic should be strongly discouraged. It is also crucial that a framework is established that will enable free-to-air and payTV broadcasters to license their content to IPTV and Video-on-Demand operators. It is important that the new policy guard against dominant mobile operators and broadcasters from

discriminatory and unfair pricing. Telkom’s discussions with Netflix, the popular VoD service from the US are said to be at an advanced stage. Telkom’s aggressive rollout of its NGN fibre-to-the-curb (FTTB) network is said to be a pre-cursor to the launch of this service. If priced appropriately, it should offer much-needed alternative to Dstv.

Licensing in the era of convergence

ICASA’s licensing framework needs to relook at the different requirements For broadcasters and telecommunications operators. There is no regulatory clarity at the moment on the licensing requirements for IPTV operators. Can existing ECNS licensees become IPTV and VoD operators without the need of an additional broadcasting license? As video content moves into IP networks, is a broadcasting license still necessary? However, SA’s broadcasters are scrambling to establish their own YouTube and Video-on-Demand presence. There is however, no regulatory framework that will establish a wholesale market for content in South Africa. In the absence of such a regulatory framework, the dominant broadcasters will no doubt seek to exploit their dominance and monopoly of content to keep competitors out of the market. It would be advisable for the policy makers to look into this to avoid going the same route as with mobile termination rates (MTR) that have resulted in South Africans paying some

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of the highest mobile phone rates in the world.

Regulating market power and pricing

There are many lessons to be learned from the past 15 years when it comes to market regulation, abuse of market power and cost of communication. Many mistakes were committed especially when Cell-C was granted a license to enter what was essentially a market dominated by a duopoly, Vodacom and MTN. The competition commission’s case against Telkom and its abuse of monopoly power shed a lot of light to the dangers of monopolies. The new policy should set a clear regulatory framework that will discourage abuse of market power and monopoly pricing. It is crucial to recognise that abuse of market power and monopolies are bad for our economy. They deny access to affordable communication to the majority of our people and derail economic development. No single operator should be allowed to artificially inflate prices and deny access to essential facilities such as landing stations, national long distance terrestrial networks, international submarine cables and even high demand spectrum crucial for last-mile access.

Open access networks and high demand spectrum

One of the major hindrances to cheaper and more ubiquitous broadband in South Africa is our poor and limited access network. The introduction of a

POLICY

wholesale open access network using the digital dividend spectrum and 2,6 GHz band will greatly improve SA’s last mile infrastructure. It is however important that the commercial and legal framework put in place for such a wholesale open access network does not fall into the same pitfalls of rent seeking by larger operators seeking to charge a premium. While the consortium partners that will fund the network rollout, will have to have preferential access to such a wholesale network, smaller ISPs must be able to pay rentals that are fairly priced to recover the capital cost of such a network over an acceptable period of time. It will be important that ICASA and the policy makers outlines a clear regulatory and policy mechanism on the workings of such an open access

wholesale network. USAASA must also play a clear role in incentivising this wholesale network to expand into underserved areas. The policy framework should ensure that the line rentals for use in those areas are clearly subsidised to ensure affordable broadband access in rural areas.

Infrastructure sharing and investment

In order to deliver the infrastructure required to accomplish the ambitious targets outlined in South Africa Connect, it is important that regulators and policy makers recognise the importance of infrastructure sharing. South Africa currently does not have policy instruments that promotes the sharing of infrastructure at the various network layers. In order to accomplish

our goals of universal connectivity, we need to harness both private and public sector investment and ensure that such investment is well planned and co-ordinated while avoiding duplicating costly infrastructure. It will be important to ensure that municipalities and utilities such as rail, power, water and road agencies are mandated to make available their servitudes to promote the deployment of fibre and wireless network infrastructure at acceptable cost. Development of master-plans for fibre rollout across all the municipalities will also be an important aspect to ensure that SA achieves its connectivity targets. It is important that both private and public sector operators are involved in the development of such master-plans. These should stipulate where infrastructure is required and also document existing infrastructure. A clear pricing framework should be developed that ensure that investors are able to recover their investment while promoting affordable access. The state’s role must however be limited to areas where commercial operators fail to invest.

Is universal service access still relevant?

Universal access will remain crucial as South Africa seeks to connect people to broadband internet. However, it is important to recognise that universal access going forward is going to be more about access to broadband internet than access to telephone services. The cost of smartphones will fall to around $20.00 over the next 18 - 24 months as Chinese smartphone vendors such as Huawei, ZTE, Xiaomi compete vigorously with the traditional vendors like Samsung, Apple, Blackberry and Sony. It is important for policy makers and regulators to focus their attention on broadband especially in underserved areas. It will be crucial to look at implementing differentiated pricing or subsidised access especially for users who want to access broadband from rural areas. We will also need to incentivise the rollout of infrastructure in rural and underserved areas.

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TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Is party over for SA’s mobile duopoly?

s South Africa celebrates 20 years since the dawn of democracy, two of South Africa’s largest mobile operators are possibly facing the end of a 20-year run on what can only be explained as a golden era of profiteering. Vodacom and MTN both launched their GSM networks back in 1994, at the dawn of a new democratic South Africa. For many, the two corporate giants represented the opportunity that came with the dawn of a new South Africa. They have both grown to be multi-billion dollar businesses with interests in many countries across Africa and the Middle East. Their founder CEOs, Phuthuma Nhleko at MTN Group and Allan KnottCraig at Vodacom, both credited with creating these mobile giants became

some sort of rock stars in corporate South Africa. In the process they made a fortune in stock options and performance bonuses for themselves.

Mobile termination rates goes on freefall

However, the last 5 - 6 years have been particularly difficult for the two mobile giants who have grown larger than their fixed line counterpart, Telkom. Signs of problems emerged when ICASA started hearings into mobile termination rates back in 2008 – 2009 in response to public outcry against the high cost of mobile services in South Africa. Many in the telecommunications sector had grown wary of the disproportionately higher interconnect fees charged by Vodacom/MTN for terminating calls on their networks.

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To illustrate how dire the situation was for Cell-C, its board of directors decided in December 2013 to hold off on an investment of $100 million into network upgrades pending a decision by ICASA to lower interconnect fees

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Smaller rival Cell-C badly needed ICASA to lower the interconnect fees that it blamed for its financial woes. It is an open secret that in the months leading to the licensing of Cell-C back in 2001, MTN and Vodacom had secretly conspired to increase the interconnect fee to fend off competition from the new upstart. Telkom’s ill-conceived decision to sell its highly profitable stake in Vodacom and launch its own mobile network in late 2010 quickly became a disaster; partly due to the high interconnect fees charged by the duopoly. The new Telkom Mobile network struggled to meet subscriber and break-even targets. Both Cell-C and Telkom Mobile needed to offer lower call rates to compete for new customers in a market where both Vodacom and MTN controlled a combined market share of over 79%. To illustrate how dire the situation was for Cell-C, its board of directors decided in December 2013 to hold off on an investment of $100 million into network upgrades pending a decision by ICASA to lower interconnect fees. Cell-C has struggled to turn a profit for Saudi Oger, who holds 65% stake in the mobile operator.

The rise of WhatsApp

To make matters worse, the emergence of social networks and IM platforms like WhatsApp, BBM and Facebook has led to a decline in voice calls especially from the more lucrative pre-paid subscriber segment. These platforms started gaining momentum back in 2008 when Blackberry launched its flat-priced BIS service costing only R59.00 per month for prepaid customers. This service became so popular that in 2011-2012, Mobile operators went into panic and considered changing their flat prices to curb those it claimed were abusing the service. Pressure from customers resulted in most operators introducing Fair Use Policy (FUP) on their terms and conditions. There is another disturbing trend especially with younger customers. They are spending more time communicating on WhatsApp, Twitter and Facebook than using voice calls and SMS. This trend spells trouble for operators that have traditionally built

The Judge, although chastising ICASA for not acting within the law in implementing these new regulations, decided to act in the public interest their revenue models around voice and SMS. There are now confirmed rumours that WhatsApp which was recently acquired by Facebook in a $19 billion take over is planning to introduce free calls. If this plan goes ahead, it will further erode voice revenues for the duopoly who will be forced to lower their call rates even further.

Mobile operators take ICASA to court

When the high-court decision was handed down on the 1st of April 2014 at the South Gauteng High Court, both MTN and Vodacom’s spin-doctors and legal councils were scrambling to keep a brave face. Some even went as far as claiming victory over ICASA. The matter in contention was whether ICASA had followed the law to the letter in deciding to introduce asymmetric mobile termination rates in favour of Cell-C and Telkom Mobile against the dominant duopoly, MTN and Vodacom of 40 cents vs 20 cents. The Judge, although chastising ICASA for not acting within the law in implementing these new regulations, decided to act in the public interest. Judge Haseena Mayat ruled that despite the 2014 regulations being invalid, she would suspend their invalidity for a period of 6 months to allow ICASA to remedy these regulations. She however chose to exercise her own judgement to order that the lower termination rates be implemented immediately to benefit the many poor people in rural areas that would benefit from lower call rates.

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Nashua Mobile closes shop One of the industry’s most successful mobile service providers has recently announced a decision to close shop and lay-off more than 400 staff. In its PR announcement, Reunert announced on Monday that “Following the expiry of the service provider agreement between Nashua Mobile and Vodacom and the expiry of the incentive agreement between MTN and Nashua Mobile under the MTN service provider agreement, the boards of Reunert and Nashua Mobile were required to consider the long-term prospects for Nashua Mobile. After careful consideration, the boards concluded that it is unlikely that this business would generate acceptable returns.” Its CEO, Mr. Mark Taylor said that this was a strategic decision on our part. Our priority now is to ensure that we maintain our service levels to our customers and that they are migrated seamlessly. We are also working hard to ensure that we minimise the impact of this transaction on our employees and we will make them a key focus of ours over the next while.” MTN started laying-off staff in the second half of 2013 in a bid to cut its operating costs in the wake of declining call rates. At that time its, MTN South Africa’s Zunaid Bulbulia indicated that all options to cut costs were being considered. He conceded that the costs of distribution were too high as mobile operators relied a lot on 3rd party distributors such as Nashua Mobile and Altech’s Autopage.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

MNOs and banks stifles mobile payments

he success of mobile wallet platforms such as m-Pesa in Kenya have been widely celebrated as an African mobile innovation that holds the promise of changing the global payment system, as we know it today.  Indeed Kenya has become a technology hub with many global tech giants like IBM, Nokia and even Google choosing Nairobi as their base for R&D activities in Africa. M-Pesa has been very successful, managing to account for over $1,67 billion of payments and money transfer in Kenya during 2013.  We recently spoke with Desmond Mongwe, founder and CEO of moWallet, a startup mobile payment and e-wallet company based in Maboneng, Johannesburg that is pioneering mobile payments. This is what he had to say about mobile payments in South Africa. Why did SA’s m-Pesa launch failed to gain traction?  “An attempt to implement m-Pesa in SA through a joint effort by Nedbank

and Vodacom has been disappointing at best. The number of m-Pesa users are only a few hundred thousands as opposed to the millions in Kenya.”, says Desmond. Vodacom announced at the beginning of 2014, that m-Pesa customers would no longer be able to transact using Nedbank ATMs. Are complex banking and payment regulations part of the problem?  The major reason for this lackluster performance can be traced back to a number of SA factors. These include our complex and difficult banking regulations and requirement as well as the jostling for position between our banks and mobile operators to dominate this space. Does SA banking/payments regulations also contribute to this? Yes, for any company in South Africa to run mobile wallet, it requires a banking license to allow customers to withdraw cash from their accounts. Mobile wallet

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agencies assigned by the business as end points (customer face) also need to comply with tough rules and regulations regarding payments. What role does mobile operators and retailers play here? Network operators provide a platform and application distribution channels to deliver mobile wallet solutions to the customer. Are they also posing a challenge or helping to grow mobile money? In South Africa you see a scenario where banks want to the network operators and network operators want to be banks and retailers are stuck in the middle. I guess retailers are happy to have a role of point of access in the ecosystem on mobile money. We have seen Vodacom applying for a banking license and FNB applying for an MVNO license, this kind of a behavior does not add value in the market or help the industry to grow, we are just heading for a disaster.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

tions in its first nine months of operations. Pick n Pay and its franchises register more than 50 million consumer transfers a month. As of 30 September 2013, MTN Mobile Money had a total of 13,4 million registered users, and the subscribers were aquired in 13 countries. Why did m-Pesa not succeed in South Africa? There are number of issues that contributed to the poor performance of the project, the implementation was not done based on the behavior of SA consumers, the effect of SA banking regulations were under-estimated, application was delivered as a closed loop between Nedbank branch stores and Vodacom stores, no freemium model was implemented on VAS provided and there were limited access points and agencies for subscribers to transact.

Desmond Mongwe, Founder and CEO of moWallet What mobile money strategies are SA banks/MNOs adopting? The only way forward and innovation is to build open loop mobile wallet application, similar to what ABSA and Standard bank are doing with prepaid money voucher. The subscriber send money to the recipient by generating voucher number worth R200.00 for example, the voucher number is then sent to recipient to withdraw money from the ATM or national retail merchant who operate as an agent on behalf of the business. This business model does not force the recipient to have mobile money account, two or more applications (mobile wallets) can now be integrated, that means the subscriber can have an option to send money to recipient by generating a voucher for Standard bank or Absa depending on where the recipient want to withdraw money (Standard

Bank ATM, ABSA ATM, Spar or Pep). What is the most successful mobile wallet in SA? My initial perception tells me is FNB, but I believe Mobile Money from MTN is more innovative, easily accessible and easy to use. Mobile money is built on top of Wigroup technology platform that is already integrated with many of the POS systems from national retailers such as Pick n Pay, Shoprite, Checkers, Boxer and Spar. Building open loop mobile money applications that run on top of open retail platforms like Wigroup, means you have about 4,000 access points throughout the country where subscriber and recipient can send and receive money. MTN mobile money has opened more than 1 million accounts and processed more than R1 billion in transac-

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What need to be done to change this situation? The biggest obstacle in mobile money for customers is the cost of transactions, it cost a minimum of R4.60 to send R50.00 using mobile wallet in South Africa. Mobile money solutions from different providers need to add value and contribute positively in the ecosystem of mobile money, operate as open loop solutions for collaboration and easy integration. Incorporate additional value added services like loading money into Gautrain card, ReaVaya card, MyCiti card, e-toll account and mobile payment at retailers. We need more players in the industry in order to have competitive solutions, Cell C has entered into a new Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) deal with Mirage Telecoms and Comverse that will see the network act as a cellular wholesaler for future Mobile Virtual Networks (MVNs) in South Africa. This deal means that banks, retailers, insurers, and other organizations will be able to offer clients cellular voice and data services using Cell C’s network and Mirage Telecom’s backend infrastructure. As a results we have already seen FNB using the offering as an opportunity to deliver mobile services.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

BROADCAST

New broadcasters licensed to enter the market

he digital media sector in SA has experienced fast growth over the last 10 years as more people get connected over the internet. Online media has developed a strong following that complements and often challenge traditional broadcast and press media platforms over the years. However television and radio broadcasting have had great impact on society due to their universal accessibility. In South Africa more than 10 millions households have access to TV and radio broadcasting. The rollout of Digital Terrestrial TV (DTT) is also going to contribute to the growth of broadcasting as more TV channels can be allocated spectrum on the digital system compared to the analog system. The last few years have been characterized by the convergence of broadcast media and online media.

New commercial radio licenses awarded Independent Communications Authority of SA (ICASA) recently awarded 3 new commercial radio licenses for talkRadio and LM Radio both based in Gauteng as well as Magic 828 who are based in Cape Town. According to Paseka Maleka , spokesperson for ICASA “licensing processes differ according to the class and type of licence one wants to apply for”. Maleka adds that “with regards to commercial licences , such as commercial radio or network services, an Invitation To Apply (ITA) is published in the government gazette to invite such applications for consideration. Community radio licenses are received at any time and the Authority has published process and regulations that explains what is required for such applications to be awarded”. Maleka states that it is important to note for anyone

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who is in the process of applying for a license to understand that “everything is important including business plans, founding documents, funding, demand and commercial viability for the invisaged license”. Maleka highlights that radio and television are under one umbrella but television is more complex when applying for a license “these are both broadcasting services and the process is the same except that television requires extensive investment in the form of funding and the applicant needs to demonstrate that they will be able to fund the project”. Time frame is also a major factor when considering the application of a broadcast license. Applicants are well advised to ensure that they have ample time when applying for a broadcasting license. “The process can take anything between 6–12 months to complete, because it involves public consulta-

BROADCAST

tions and hearings; and in some cases the authority may require additional information from applicants to be able to make informed decisions”. Medium-Wave (MW) licenses back in demand With regards to the number of medium-wave licences for radio broadcasting, Maleka says “the Authority intends to award two licences to applicants in the geographical markets of Gauteng, two in the metropolitan areas Durban and a further two licences in the metropolitan areas of Cape Town. These amount to a total of six licences. It should be noted that the frequencies to be licensed for primary markets are all on the Medium Wave (MW) band”. He also indicated that there are additional licenses for the secondary

markets. “The Authority intends to award one licence to the successful applicant in the Northern Cape, two in the Free State and one in the Eastern Cape provinces. A total of four licences will be issued to successful applicants and will all be on the FM band” he concludes. The rise of Podcasts and twitter in radio broadcasting With the emergence of online platforms the media landscape in South Africa has drastically changed, being a radio or television station without having an online footprint does not cut it anymore. In the past, it was adequate to have a website. Today radio and TV stations that want to stay relevant to their listeners have to develop live streaming, podcasts as well as twitter and facebook presence.

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Combining traditional broadcasting with internet channels is very important in today’s media sector. Top radio and TV stations have incorporated many online channels to ensure that their listeners are able to interact with the station using the most convenient channel of their choice. Each time a radio or TV presenter is on air, listeners are able to tune in online and send their feedback using twitter or follow their favourate shows on facebook. Many radio and TV personalities have their own facebook and twitter presence with regular updates. It is also becoming common to record radio shows as podcasts to enable listeners to catch up with their favourite shows. Online media also provides an opportunity to interact with other listeners and share views.

Top SA radio stations and facebook followers Listeners of South Africa’s top radio stations have taken to twitter and facebook in their thousands. Metro fm, Talk702, Power fm, 5fm and Yfm have all harnessed the power of social media to keep their audience captivated. Below is a list of the top radio stations based on Facebook followers with Metro FM an Talk702 topping the charts.

Radio station

Facebook followers

Metro FM

422,508

Talk702

78,020

Y FM

8, 852

Umhlobo Wenene FM

16,302

Lesedi FM

34,714

Ukhozi FM

37,428

Talk702 and Power FM, two stations that have a major focus on talk shows have used social media very successfully to allow their listeners to engage with newsmakers on current affairs and topical issues. Metro FM in particular recently hosted its 13th Metro FM Music Awards (MMA), which relied heavily on social media to market this event. With over 175,000 followers on twitter, the station’s timeline had high volumes of tweets from its listeners about the MMA awards.

Talk702 and Power FM, … have used social media very successfully to allow their listeners to engage with newsmakers

Although the traditional broadcast sector is far from becoming unfashionable, using social media to raise a station’s profile has become more crucial to its survival. New ways and technics of tracking online presence are already emerging. Whether internet radio will ultimately surpass radio broadcasting as more listeners get mobile internet is a question to ponder on still. However there is no doubt that the future of broadcasting has been affected by the emergence of social media.

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COMPANY

One Connect steams ahead

riven by the desire to achieve more and a never say die attitude, OneConnect Technologies have survived a business catastrophe few years back. The company which now boast an international office in Africa nearly collapsed in 2010 as business conditions got tougher. Armed with an Honours degree in Computer Science and a Postgraduate Business Management Qualification, Rogers Sithole has steered the OneConnect ship through rough seas as the company steams ahead. Sithole who has worked for Bytes Technologies and an International Software development Company TIBCO at the start of his career has immense experience in Technology and system implementation both abroad and locally. He has implemented solutions for Standard Bank, Rand Merchant Bank, Deutsche Bank, Doha Securities Market (Qatar Exchange), Safaricom among others. For Sithole, a father of three, giving up was never a choice when things did not look good for the company. “We couldn’t give up, you need to know when to let go. At the time it was not the time to let go, we saw a way we could salvage the company and it paid off. The opportunities and potential were bigger than the challenges we faced at the time”. The company is home to 19 employees prides itself in the way it does business, a strategy Sithole attributes to the company staying afloat. “We are a small company and virtually unknown so whatever business we get no matter how small we give it our all. We do not have a small client, all the clients are big, we treat our clients with an excellent service , unlike big companies we really value our clients no matter how small the invoice might be”, said the energetic Executive Director. A lot of IT companies have gone down as technology trends changes, a trap Sithole says they will not fall into. He believes in flexibility of service

offerings and the ability to adapt. “When we started the company we were a simple TIBCO consulting company, but we decided it was suicidal to depend on a single technology as an IT company. So we came up with other ways to move the business forward by encompassing other technologies like SAP for example”, he notes. Mobility as a service within the IT industry is important to most organisations. Statistics says almost 75% of mobile devices run on Android so keeping up to date with trends is very important. Sithole says they have also aligned their business with Cloud Computing and Mobile Solutions because it is the biggest IT trend at the moment, organisations do not want to be buying servers, they want to use software as a service, that is where the industry is going he says. Most companies will count signing the biggest contract as a highlight for their organisations, but for this energetic Executive it is human capital that sparks lights in his eyes. “Creating platforms where we can give people the opportunity to express their skills in a corporate environment is very close to our company. We pride ourselves in creating opportunities for ourselves and other people. This inturn leads to big contracts.” OneConnect specialises in IT Advisory, Professional services, Corporate Branding and Software Development and it is eyeing the fast growing East African Market. “ We have opened an office in Nairobi, Kenya, because there is strong growth and opportunities that we can explore as a company, we started humble and I believe this is a new leaf into the life of this organisation.” Sithole says proudly. Besides doing custom Desktop Applications, IOS, Android and Blackberry Mobile Applications for clients, the company also have strong partnerships with big role players in the industry. “We also have partnerships

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based on our knowledge, we implement other company’s technologies like TIBCO, and SAP as their Value Added Reseller Partners”. However Sithole is quick to warn that Partnerships mean nothing if you are not going to do anything about it, “you cannot just sit and relax because you have a partnership with a global player in the IT world”, he says. What has worked for us in the past is the quality in which we deliver to our clients, creating an environment where it is easy to work stress-free, you give principles and frameworks, and sense of ownership is very crucial from an employee’s point of view, the culture of ownership should be entrenched in each person within the organisation. “We do not have a long corporate ladder, but we have the ambition to climb the ladder that we create ourselves unlike big conglomerates.” says Sithole as he explains how the company managed to keep going. As a lot of companies still try to sail around deep waters of the constant changes in technology, Sithole says IT Advisory is very crucial in any organisation as “we” are not all experts in all fields. “Business needs to focus on their core area to run smoothly and we are there to give advice on what should be implemented. “ In fact you save a lot of money by having sound advice before any implemention because you might spend a lot of money by implementing a wrong technology solution”.

Roger Sithole, Executive Director of OneConnect

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Rising star

SA’s Cisco expert journey to the top For many years the IT industry for young black children has always seemed out of reach. But through the years many have proved that a determined mind opens up opportunities some beyond one’s expectations.

Ofentse Mokhutshwane (CCIE), Senior Systems Engineer, Nashua Communications

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fentse Mokhutshwane is one such person. The man who hails from Botswana is proving that great belief coupled with hard work pays off eventually. As the first certified black CCIE (Cisco Certified Internetwork Expert), he has set the bench mark for many others to follow. Ofentse jump started his career at the Allenby College in Cape Town where he studied for a diploma in computer science. He also completed his CCNA (Cisco Certified Network Associate) at Cape Peninsula University. In his career so far he has worked for a number of large corporations ranging from Dimension Data to Business Connexion. “I started my career as a network trainee engineer at Dimension Data Cape Town in 2002.Left in 2004 to pursue further studies at the University of Pretoria. I re-joined Dimension Data but this time in Johannesburg for a four month contract. After the end of my contract I joined Huawei Technologies as a product manager in 2005. I then went back again to Dimension Data in 2006 as a 1st line network engineer based onsite at the department of International Relations in 2006”. Currently he is working as a senior network engineer at Business Connexion. Having grown up with a dream of becoming an Electrical engineer, his

Rising star

dream soon changed course when he came in contact with computers. “My love and passion for computers grew. I changed my mind immediately and followed my new passion. That’s when I moved to Allenby College to do computer science. A close friend of mine Khaya Baduza, actually convinced me to do CCNA”. While under the supervision of some experts in the industry, he made the realisation that the IT world was one in which a person could not ignore. “I guess that’s how I’m now an IT guru and cannot imagine my life outside the IT world as yet.” As one would expect trying to achieve a status does not become an easy fit. For Ofentse it has been a long road from where he first began. Becoming certified for him has come with major challenges as rocky one as Ofentse puts it. “I attempted the CCIE exam several times, I remember the first time when I went to India for training I didn’t really know what was going on in all the labs, it took me a whole day just to configure only one lab out of seven labs that I had to do. The first time I didn’t really mind failing, I just wanted to get the feel of the exam. But the second time when I didn’t make it, that’s when it crushed me, because this meant more money to be spent, the air tickets (because the exams are not offered in SA or Africa), the accommodation fees and most importantly the exam fee that was not cheap”. Support in one’s industry or the lack thereof could either make or break a person for Ofentse, doubts from some of his colleagues only fuelled his ambition. “One of the personal sacrifices I had to make was with regards to my social life, friends and family. Although it took me several attempts to get a pass, I didn’t lose courage because I believed in what I was doing and I was enjoying the subject matter. These are just the biggest obstacles I had to overcome”. He also attests to the fact that throughout the whole process discipline has always been key in overcoming and achieving. “Acquiring any sort of qualification without discipline is a morbid prospect. I had to tell myself

from the beginning that CCIE was to come first and prioritise my time accordingly. I’m sure many can also testify that it’s not easy studying and working. Only discipline and efficient time management can save the day”. As the first certified black CCIE Ofentse says just the thought makes him smile. “I never thought I could do it, honestly. I’m really honoured and there are no words that can express my happiness now. My hard work really paid off at the end! This shows that everything is possible. The sky can never be the limit”. This for him is a door slightly open for more black professionals to also progress in the world of IT. “I also intend on using this new platform to motivate growth of young black professionals in the field”. A country that has the type of history such as South Africa’s; when addressing issues of successes and failures, lines will always be drawn from a racial standpoint. The IT industry is no different Ofentse says that Black South Africans were oppressed more than two decades ago, and we are only just now having a shipment of professionals who have been unhindered by the politics of South Africa then. “Most South Africans are not even aware of the qualification itself or what it stands for, so awareness to professions such as this must be raised. I believe in the near future this opportunity I have been given will attract others to also pursue this qualification”. He adds that the youth of South Africa need to be exposed to IT to the point where it is as viable a course as a Bcom. The 21st century is truly for information technology. No business or organisation can function without it. This in his opinion should be able to at least address the country’s IT skills shortage. “I think here even the private sector can get involved by inviting trainees to come and learn from them as early as the high school level. Additionally financing students who wish to take IT in their studies as this is one of the major challenges in black communities”.

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“

Most South Africans are not even aware of the qualification itself or what it stands for, so awareness to professions such as this must be raised.

CCIE Voice professionals currently in South Africa

39 000 estimated CCIE’s professionals worldwide

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Focused personality

Michael Masutha, Former Deputy Minister of Science and Technology

How a blind advocate beat the odds “The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision”, Hellen Keller once said. Though partially blind, the statement resonates well with Advocate Tshililo Michael Masutha, former Deputy Minister of the Department of Science and Technology. 30

Humble Beginnings

Masutha was born with a visual impairment and had to attend a school for the blind, the same school attended by world renowned singer Steve Kekana. Having spent most of his childhood in and out of hospitals for an eye treatment, Masutha had to tackle life in a different way. Born in Valdelzia, a rural village in Limpopo that served as a station for Swiss missionaries that arrived in the area in the early 1900s, Masutha lost vision on his right eye. This marked the start of the 48 year old’s life battle to get to the top.

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“I spent almost 7 years from the time I was born going in and out of the Hospital at Elim receiving all sorts of medical treatment for the eye. In the process I lost my right eye completely so now there is no visual perception on my right eye, I cannot begin to perceive vision” he recounts. Masutha’s first major hurdle was his transition from his protected environment to the untamed world of tertiary education, a moment he says brought out the fighter in him. “I registered with the University of Limpopo but there were issues regarding my admission to study

Focused personality

law. The university admissions office told me that they had no obligation to accept me into the programme despite having achieved above average marks in my matric. This happened to be the only University I had applied for, so my options were very limited. We then literally camped outside the academic registrar’s office until someone took notice and I was eventually admitted into Turfloop in 1985” he says.

Blind man, you are on your own

Once admitted to study law at the University, he soon realised that there was very little by way of infrastructure and facilities to support students with disabilities. The university did not even have braille instruments or audio-visual facilities that could support learning for the visually impaired. The accommodation hostels did not support access for students with disabilities. It was during this time at Turfloop that Masutha became passionate about the rights of people with disabilities as he came face-to-face with the harsh realities of being visually impaired. “I got to university and quickly realised, blind man, you are on your own! I then decided with a handful of other disabled students to mobilise and form a Blind Student’s Committee to engage with management about issues regarding suitable accommodation and facilities to cater for the disabled”.

An Advocate for equality

Despite the challenges, he eventually graduated from the University of Limpopo (then University of the North) with a BJuris degree after four years. He also obtained an LLB degree from Wits University in 1989. Among his classmates at Wits University, former Deputy Minister Masutha is proud to count the likes of Advocate Thuli Madonsela, South Africa’s fearless and bold Public Protector. Armed with his legal arsenal, he began a long journey that started with the fight for equal rights for people with disabilities in the workplace. “In 1991 I started working with Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR)

“

Innovation has to be at the centre if we are looking to move forward as a nation and get to the levels of the rapidly developed nations particularly those from the East

Profile

Republic of South Africa representing the African National Congress. He has held various positions in parliament including serving on the justice and constitutional development committee; constitutional review committee; social development; rules committee; programming and several ad-hoc committees. He was a committee whip for social development, house whip in the national assembly, chairperson of review of rules sub-committee under the rules committee, chairperson of the standing committee on AuditorGeneral. In June 2013, he was appointed as a Deputy Minister for the department of Science and Technology. He continues to advocate for equality through science and innovation and the participation of women and people with disabilities.

Technology, Education and the Youth

as Director for its Disability Rights Unit. I was also recruited by Disabled People South Africa (DPSA). They wanted some legal muscle to fight discrimination against people with disabilities. They wanted to partner with a more prominent human rights organisation that has legal muscle. As a result of their partnership with Lawyers for Human Rights, we formed a unit within Disabled People South Africa to strengthen their legal capacity, he explains. Through LHR and Disabled South Africa, Masutha was very instrumental in shaping the early thinking around the rights for people with disabilities that eventually got adopted in the new constitution of South Africa. From 1999 to date, Advocate Masutha has been a member of the National Assembly, Parliament of the

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The former minister who has a passion for Science and Technology says technology is the most powerful tool to close the gap within society across different sectors. “Women in particular are more likely to be vulnerable because of economic scales and how they are generally perceived and positioned”. He also says that during his years of studies the tape recorder was highly helpful to him. “For blind people all over the world, the advent of radio and the tape recorder just opened up the world for us, from the point of view of communications”. He adds that reading material for the blind was difficult to find, but because of the tape recorder make it through his six years of study. The former minister concludes that for Innovation to succeed there has to be bodies that are properly skilled. “Innovation has to be at the centre if we are looking to move forward as a nation and get to the levels of the rapidly developed nations particularly those from the East”. Advocate Masuthu has since been appointed as the new minister of Justice and Correctional services after the recent cabinet shuffle by President Jacob Zuma.

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SA’s bio-economy focussed on growth The Department of Science and Technology has since January 2014 launched The Bio-economy Strategy initiative. The term “Bio-economy” encompasses biotechnological activities and processes that translate into economic outputs, particularly those with industrial application.

ccording to the department when looking at it within the South African context, these may include but are not limited to, technological and non-technological exploitation of natural resources such as animals, plant biodiversity, micro-organisms and minerals to improve human health, address food security and subsequently contribute to economic growth and improved quality of life. Former Deputy Minister Michael Masutha says “the new strategy that was recently adopted called ‘Bio-economy’ serves to replaces the previous which was known as ‘Biotechnology’ to become a more comprehensive strategy”. The vision is for South Africa’s bio-economy to be a significant contributor to the country’s economy by 2030 in terms of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is to be achieved through the creation and growth of novel industries that generate and develop bio-based services, products and innovations. The Bio-economy Strategy for the country is expected to provide an economic engine for the new economy that will, in turn, provide a basis for

future growth. The strategy builds upon the strong foundation laid by two ground-breaking initiatives by the Department. The first is the National Biotechnology Strategy of 2001, which was aimed at initiating the development of technologies and associated products and services to address the vital science-based innovation needs of the country in the health, industrial and agricultural sectors of the economy. However, it soon became apparent there were gaps in the strategy framework – it focused on commercialisation of technologies that were close to market, representing a quick return on investment, instead of being formulated to develop an innovation value chain for biotechnology-based products. The second initiative is the Ten-Year Innovation Plan of 2008, which is aimed at transforming the South African economy into a knowledge-based economy, in which the production and dissemination of knowledge leads to economic benefits and enriches all fields of human endeavour. The plan identified five

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Grand Challenges, which include the “Farmer to Pharma” concept envisaged to provide the interface for integrating South Africa’s rich natural biodiversity, indigenous knowledge and applied biotechnologies. Masutha adds that innovation needs to lead the way in terms of directing the country to compete with economies that have been on a steady incline. “We need to have innovation as the centre of the country’s economic strategy. The strategy is being absorbed neatly in the National Development Plan (NDP). Innovation will help our economy compete better with the rapidly developed countries around the world”.

Formulation

The department says the Bio-economy Strategy has been formulated to be more productive, more responsive and more relevant to the needs of South Africans; and to make a marked positive impact on the lives of all South Africans. “This new strategy provides a high-level framework to guide biosciences research and innovation investments, as well as decision-making as South Africa adapts to the realities of global

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transition to a low carbon economy”. An important development entrenched in the strategy, is the drive to expand the country’s shift in focus from developing biotechnology capabilities – and subsequently the biotechnology sector as a whole – to developing a bio-economy. “This is where the biotechnology sector joins forces with the ICT sector, environmental agencies, the social sciences and other technologies, especially indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) community of practice, to create holistic solutions and industrial applications for agriculture as well as the health and industrial sectors, in order to create a worldclass biotechnological system of innovation”. The strategy focuses on creating and enabling environment for a wide range of role players that include government departments, established industry, venture capital and the broader public; and on interacting with life-science role players, academics, researchers and private sector entrepreneurs to create value. The Department of Science and Technology, in consultation with other relevant stakeholders, has identified three key economic sectors – Agriculture, Health and Industry – as being the most in need of, and likely to benefit from key levers to drive the implementation of the South African Bio-economy Strategy.

Agriculture

Africa has long had its reliance on agriculture for many years and with the effects of global warming new farming methods are required. “Of the three sectors identified as crucial elements of the Bio-economy, the agricultural industry currently has the highest economic impact. With relatively little capital infrastructure required, it remains a key opportunity for poverty alleviation, job creation, economic development and household food security in South Africa, on the African continent and abroad”. The Department states that the Bio-economy Strategy’s objective for agriculture is to strengthen agricultural biosciences innovation

to ensure food security, enhance nutrition and improve health, as well as enable job creation through the expansion and intensification of sustainable agricultural production and processing. “These interventions should be driven by strategic need as well as market demand, and will require strong private-sector involvement. Biotechnology will play a crucial role in helping to improve the heat-resistance and drought-tolerance of crops and address the challenges of climate change, diminishing water and grazing, and potential loss of biodiversity”.

Health

Disease burdens South Africa’s health system. The way in which South Africa chooses to address global challenges such as communicable diseases plays an important role in determining the country’s research agenda. South Africa needs to develop the ability to manufacture drugs, vaccines and other biologics locally, to improve the health sector’s bio-economy and to help the country achieve its public health goals. “The Bio-economy Strategy’s objective with regards to health is to support and strengthen the country’s local research, development and innovation capabilities. By drawing on these capabilities, South Africa will be able to manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients, vaccines, biopharmaceuticals, diagnostics and medical devices to address the disease burden, while ensuring a secure supply of essential therapeutics and prophylactics”. The development of new and improved therapeutics (drugs, vaccines, phytomedicines and biopharmaceuticals), diagnostics and medical devices is a key area of intervention. The need to strengthen and coordinate the informal herbal

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medicines market presents an opportunity to grow the African traditional medicines sector.

Industry and the Environment

The industrial bio-economy focuses on two areas – industry and sustainable environmental management. The former involves bio-based chemicals, biomaterials and bio-energy. The latter involves water and waste as a means of providing environmental sustainability for the industrial bioeconomy. The chemical industry is the foundation of manufactured goods. It provides inputs for a wide range of products such as pharmaceuticals, food, fuels, plastics and other materials. The emerging industrial Bioeconomy is expected to bring about improvements in the manufacturing sector’s energy intensity, water usage, waste management and greenhouse gas emissions. These enhancements will improve the industry’s competitiveness and reduce its environmental footprint. The Bio-economy Strategy’s key objectives with regard to industry and the environment are to prioritise and support research, development and innovation in biological processes for the production of goods and services, while enhancing water and waste-management practices in support of a green economy. According to data “current global trends indicate an increase in herbal product market value. The developing countries have emerged as the main suppliers of herbal and natural products to the developed world. South Africa possesses a major comparative advantage in biodiversity and climate for sustainable cultivation and processing of herbal products”.

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South African Minister of Science and Technology, Mr Derek Hanekom

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for both countries to share knowledge and experience.” The Minister added that the agreement would strengthen human capital development through the initiation of joint research projects and programmes between role players in the STI communities of both countries. Both South Africa and Malaysia identified specific areas of cooperation for discussion at the first South Africa-Malaysia Joint Committee meeting. The Joint Committee meeting is aimed at developing an action plan for bilateral cooperation over the next two years, which is expected to include the areas of Antarctic research, ICT, Energy Security, Innovation for inclusive development, Sustainable Human Settlements, Innovation and Commercialisation, Astronomy and the Bio-economy.

Future prospects

South Africa and Malaysia strengthen cooperation

Recently the first South AfricaMalaysia Joint Committee Meeting on Science, Technology and innovation took place in Pretoria. The meeting followed the signing of an innovative partnership agreement between the two countries. A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was initially signed on the 23rd of April by the then South African Minister of Science and Technology, Mr Derek Hanekom, and the Malaysian Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Datuk Dr Ewon Ebin. Speaking at that signing ceremony in Cape Town, Minister Hanekom said, “The agreement is aimed at enhancing socio-economic development in both countries through STI cooperation, and will provide a tremendous opportunity

The Department of Science and Technology says it has envisaged outcomes within the next five years, and beyond, to carve a niche for South Africa in the globally competitive pharmaceutical industry; to fund centres of competence in the top five national health priorities; to increase foreign direct investment in health-related R&D; to strengthen the functional technology platform for agricultural biotechnology; and to strengthen research, development and innovation in the production of human and animal vaccine. While there is no single route to attaining a viable Bio-economy, it is clear that South Africa needs to significantly increase its gross expenditure on relevant research and development RDI. This funding should be used to capitalise on the country’s opportunities and strengths and to adapt lessons learned locally and from other countries. The training of Scientists, Engineers and Technicians at all points through the entire innovation value chain should be

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The agreement is aimed at enhancing socioeconomic development in both countries through STI cooperation, and will provide a tremendous opportunity for both countries to share knowledge and experience. intensified, as well as the development of “Technopreneurs”, who are vital in developing diverse technologies into innovative products and services at the downstream end of the value chain. The Department of Science and Technology adds that as the lead agent of this strategy, it will continue to engage with line departments to promote cooperation, facilitate the strategy’s broad implementation, and ensure synergy, alignment and better coordination of activities. “It is crucial to note that the success of the strategy hinges on the coordinated efforts and unanimous will of all stakeholders involved, and will require due conscientiousness, patience and robust investments in order to achieve its goals” the department concludes.

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Ekurhuleni in broadband drive

s the government put its foot on the broadband pedal after the South African broadband policy was gazetted last year December, municipalities are working on becoming digital cities. Creating a fibre and wireless network throughout Ekurhuleni to create a connected government is already taking place especially at the historically disadvantaged areas. The city of Ekurhuleni has prioritized among other projects to connect all the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) buildings with broadband connectivity and free internet access for the community at various libraries is available and will be improved upon. Lebogang Ramashala, Acting Spokesperson for City of Ekurhuleni says creating internet zones to the public will encourage economic development for previously disadvantaged. Ramashala says will reduce the travelling times for residents to various city offices as they can do electronic queries for example. Ekurhuleni says the Digital City programme focuses on creating a connected city as well as greatly enhanced engagement with citizens. The EMM’s ICT Department developed a master systems plan to create functionality that will enable all service departments to increase customer service. “We are also supporting all initiatives from the various departments that are implementing a range of functionality and technologies to increase service delivery”, says Ramashala The city also notes that applications changes have resulted in the creation of a citizen engagement portal (e-Siyakoka), establishment of the Indigent programme as well as the enablement of the interim Unified Command Centre (which facilitates customer interaction and enhanced responsiveness). E-government has been hailed as

steps to the right direction and the city says it has created a citizen engagement framework which it will be expanding on in the next year as a function of the master Systems Plan rollout. “Yes, it is a key part of the digital city programme to create a connected city. The EMM Broadband vision is articulated in the EMM Digital City strategy which is also aligned with the SA Broadband policy”. Ramashala says the municipality has commenced with the programme of fibre rollout, which is starting to enhance performance of IT systems. Though she says the “fibre to the home” phenomenon is an important contributor in bridging the digital divide, the city would only be able to assist where kit can but it is not involved in the rollout . “We leave this to telecommunications companies who will drive this programme on the basis of their commercial drivers. The EMM will work with to support and enable any telecommunications company who could create jobs and increase economic development in this process”. As technology matures, a lot of organisations have also turned to other technologies in a bid to be more effective and cut costs. One of the trending technologies that has been tipped to take over the ICT industry has been the notion

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of cloud computing. “Cloud computing is supported, and the municipality has started the process of ensuring that its architectural framework can support the cloud approach (from a resiliency, diversity and disaster recovery perspective). This applies to the virtualised server framework as well as the communications diversity”. Explains Ramashala. Even though the city admits that cloud as the way to go for their ICT strategy it admits that there are still at an early age but hoping to be matured soon. “Cloud computing components are already active in the municipality, but no core systems have been re-orientated at this stage. We are considering cloud computing as one of the options but have not made a firm decision on this as yet”. The city says it has created a citizen engagement framework which it will be expanding on in the next year as a function of the master Systems Plan rollout. Furthermore Ramashala says extensive network build as well as hosting facilities are well within its technology radar Skills shortages have been a key concern with government and the city says a workplace skills plan has been created which also supports internships and learnerships. As the Gauteng department of Education embarks on muilti-million extensive schools online project, Raboshala says Ekhuruleni is delighted to be a part of this project and will support the project by providing the last mile connectivity. The project is one of the provincial government’s key ICT initiatives aimed at transforming Gauteng into a Smart Province. It was initiated not only to provide computer literacy to leaners, but to support the delivery of quality education by creating a sustainable e-learning environment in the classrooms of public schools so as to bridge the Digital Divide.

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Northern Cape MEC for Education Grizelda Cjiekella-Lecholo, Principal of Iketleletso Middle School and former Deputy Minister of Science and Technology Michael Masutha.

DST connects Kuruman schools to wireless mesh

he department of Science and Technology has through the CSIR implemented its second phase of its wireless mesh network. Schools in the rural JT Gaetsewe District Municipality in the Northern Cape Province have received a technological boost thanks to the Department of Science and Technology’s wireless mesh network initiative. In total 56 sites which include 28 schools, clinics and colleges will be

connected through the initiative at the geographically challenged flat area of Kuruman. The wireless mesh network technology is a cheaper method to access the internet as it requests less and cost effective architecture. The initiative which runs on South African National Research Network, which also links all major institutions of learning in South Africa, promises to positively change the way learners engage with their studies.

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Speaking at the launch of the project, Science and Technology Deputy Minister Advocate Michael Masutha said with technology at their disposal the learner’s life will be changed for the better. “The use of ICT has a positive impact on people’s lives and these learners here today will be living proof of that” he said at the launch held at Learamele Special School in the area. “With the successful implementation of the project, the DST intends

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to contribute meaningfully to relevant government policy implementation initiatives such as the recent Cabinetapproved National Broadband Policy – “South Africa Connect”. This policy has a vision to make broadband universally accessible by 2030, at a cost and quality that meets citizens’ needs, including formal and informal business and the public sector,” said Deputy Minister Masutha. Developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the WMN aims to take broadband infrastructure to rural communities and equip individuals with the necessary entrepreneurial and technical skills to build and operate large area wireless networks. The project has already seen more than 200 schools connected successfully at the Enkangala district in Mpumalanga and Sekhukhune areas in 2010. Funded by the European Union and implemented by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Meraka Institute, the initiative - part of the wider Broadband4All project - aims to establish alternative information and communication technology (ICT) infrastructure in rural areas countrywide.   The initiative is a major boost as most rural areas already struggle with the lack of facilities like modern laboratories and updated libraries. “I am very happy that this will change the way we study especially researches for science projects. We don’t have an excuse going forward because the internet will change our lives,” Says Bogosibotsile Potsane a grade 12 learner from Rekgaratlile high school, a neighbouring school in the area. Boitshoko Bannane, a teacher at the school says this project will do more for the pupil as it would encourage research. With the use of technology learners will have all the luxury of doing research. This will be able to ready our learners to the real world environment where research and selfstudy is important. “I am grateful that our school will be able to benefit from this impressive project, hats off to all involved” Northern Cape MEC for Education Grizelda Cjiekella-Lecholo said the department is delighted that com-

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With the successful implementation of the project, the DST intends to contribute meaningfully to relevant government policy implementation initiatives

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munication between schools, learners and district offices will be improved, “ schools will be able to communicate easily with districts and learners will be empowered through the use of technology and we are grateful for having such technology in our area,” she said. The network infrastructure has a central point of connection and wireless links which transfer data to different communities at a specific school. The mesh network will then distribute the signal to the community from the host school. “We hope the launch of this initiative will inspire learners to strive to achieve more and become model citizens in the future as technology plays an important role in education,” Said Research Group Leader: Trusted Network Infrastructures & Services at CSIR Meraka Institute, Karel Matthee. Among some of the services that the wireless mesh will provide to the learners, teachers and the administrators with fax solutions, voice over internet protocol solutions, the ability to send e-mails and connect to the internet,” said Mathee. In the Kuruman network, the Internet connection capacity is 30 Megabits per second, Provided by 4 bonded ADSL lines. The maximum capacity per wireless mesh link is 5 Megabits per second inside the mesh. The Wireless Mesh Technology is based on line-of-sight technologies using conventional Wi-Fi radios. The links between neighbouring nodes have to be line-of-sight, but the network of nodes provides routes that get around and beyond the hills and other obstacles. According to Karel Matthee of the CSIR Meraka Institute the Wireless Mesh links up to 20 kilometers but in some cases they require small towers to see beyond the obstacles/horizon. “There are limits to the number of hops to provide a good service to the end-users in a mesh. We try to keep the hop count to less than three in order to avoid excessive delays in the network. There are also limits to the number of nodes in a mesh. We have nodes that are 20km away from the backhaul connection in the mesh” he says.

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However, Matthee says a pure mesh solution is not an appropriate model to service communities spread over 100km to 150km away from the Internet connection. “Our approach to address this problem would be to combine long distance wireless links and mesh. We deploy a dedicated long distance wireless backbone to provide backhaul links to bring the signal into an area. We then build mesh clusters, with maximum 25 nodes, around these backhaul connections”, he explains. South Africa has one of the highest rates of digital inequality in the world and the government has set its sights on getting everyone connected by 2020. The fact that South Africa has a different geographical landscape throughout its nine provinces also poses a problem for the provision of internet access in the “commercially” unviable areas. For Matthe, the wireless mesh network can be a great alterative in the South African context. “As part of a portfolio of solutions our approach, combining a long range wireless backbone network and small mesh clusters has been proven to work well in our Broadband-for-All Project in three provinces: Mpumalanga, Limpopo and the Northern Cape. However he says various factors determine the suitability of this solution compared to others. “The terrain and, in particular, trees do impact the potential suitability of wireless mesh as a viable technical solution in an area. This solution can work well for communities within 50km from a site with good Internet connectivity”, he says As South Africa battles to connect schools in the country, the CSIR says the wireless mesh network is perhaps a model for school connectivity that the Department of Communication and Department of Basic Education. “Our project in the Northern Cape was done with full cooperation by the provincial Department of Basic Education. Ultimately, we have proven the viability of the solution. The Sustainability of the solution depends on the funding model in order to secure not only the initial network deployment but also provide

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the support and maintenance required to keep the network operating. The cost of providing a good customer service experience (telephone access to a customer service desk) and providing ongoing network monitoring should be considered upfront when a project is planned. The department of science and technology’s decision to create the South African National Research Network in 2005 is paying off as the mesh network in some instances leverage on its fast network. “Our approach relies on having access to the Internet. This Internet service has to be able to provide a sustained good throughput to ensure an acceptable service to the end-users. Our preference is to connect into the fast SANReN network. It is not always possible to access SANReN fibre. In that case we access SANReN via ADSL as is the case in the Northern Cape. We are encouraged by the plans

to extend fibre access to rural areas as part of the DoC’s broadband and SIP 15 initiatives”. Though the wireless mesh network initiative has made serious inroads in the previously underserviced and geographically challenged areas, the cost associated with its deployment sometimes becomes a hurdle. The CSIR says the costs are dependent on the nature of the project and is mostly affected by the number of mesh nodes, the number of wireless backbone links and other services included in building the network. “This is often subject to tender. Redline Telecommunications SA (Pty) Limited is the licensed industry partner of the CSIR for the wireless mesh network technology who can provide pricing information of request” Beside wireless mesh technologies Wimax, Wi-Fi, proprietary radio (Ubiquiti), Matthee says mesh is the best way to go because of its

design and ease of deployment. He says Wireless mesh does not compete with Wimax or 3G as it is based on Wi-Fi technology. “The mesh product consists of a custom designed enclosure and includes three radios. The mesh protocol differentiates it from other equipment in the market. The solution is easy to deploy and self-healing. In the case where one mesh node breaks, the rest of the network keeps on working because of the redundancy in the network links”. The Wireless Mesh Technology was designed and developed by the CSIR and commercialised. The CSIR says it has licensed the technology to Parsec Holdings (Pty) Limited, a South African group of companies. The group will have the right to manufacture and distribute the technology. Any commercial company, including ISPs, can acquire the technology through Redline Telecommunications SA (Pty) Limited, the local distributor.

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Tshwane to rollout 600 hotspots

he City of Tshwane (CoT) will  in the next 18 months rollout over 600 hotspots across Tshwane as it plans to close the gap on the digital divide. The municipality says it has already rolled out approximately 500km of fibre to support the city. “This is already saving the city a lot of money due to the introduction of voice over IP to replace their fixedline telephone network. Most of the offices can make city to city calls within Tshwane at little cost” says the city’s Group Chief Information Officer, Dumisani Otumile Otumile further says the city has prioritised the roll out of E-services where CoT services are made available online and city residents are provided with the facility to interact with the city without visiting any of the Customer Service Centres. The city has also aligned its ICT policy with the South African Local Government Association’s to avoid duplication of projects. As part of the city’s broader strategy to develop infrastructure, The city says it approved its ICT strategy in 2013. This was followed by the approval of the business case and subsequently the implementation model. “The procurement process of building 2000km of fibre is currently underway. This is the biggest ICT infrastructure investment to be rolled out by any municipality. It will have a huge impact on the cost of doing business in the capital city” he said. Though the city says it acknowledges the contribution that ICT can make, it also concedes that affordability remains a challenge. “The City of Tshwane notes that there are still challenges around affordability as it relates to internet access hence the free Wi-Fi initiative,” What are the priority ICT projects for

the municipality? Three projects have been prioritized for the City of Tshwane Municipality namely: ∆ Rollout of e-services (e-Tshwane) where CoT services are made available online and city residents are provided with the facility to interact with the city without visiting any of the Customer Services Centres. ∆ Rollout of free Wi-Fi throughout Tshwane with more focus on institutions of learning. ∆ Rollout of a Tshwane –wide Broadband infrastructure to stimulate socio-economic development in Tshwane What has the municipality set out and achieved in the past few years and what changes have that brought? The Municipality has already rolled out approximately 500km of fibre to support the business of the city. This is already saving the city a lot of money due to the introduction of voice over IP to replace our fixed-line telephone network. Most of the offices can make inter-city calls within Tshwane at little cost. e-Tshwane was launched as part of the city’s strategy to promote selfservice solutions. Within 4 months of the launch, the city already has more than 30 000 accounts registered Broadband has been mentioned as one of the key priority area by national government, how does this speak to the municipality? As part of the city’s broader strategy to develop infrastructure, The city approved its ICT strategy in 2013. This was followed by the approval of the business case and subsequently the implementation model. The procurement process for an additional

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2000km of fibre is currently underway. This is the biggest ICT infrastructure to have been rolled out by any municipality. It will have a huge impact on the cost of doing business in the capital city. There have been a lot of talk about fibre to the home projects, what is the municipality’s view on this?  Providing ICT services to each household has far reaching benefits for the residents of any municipality. The rollout of broadband will go a long way in ensuring that this objective is achieved. Furthermore, the City of Tshwane is also the first metro to roll out free Wi-Fi for its residents to bridge the digital divide. Phase 1 has been completed and launched. In the next 18 months, the city will rollout over 600 hotspots spread across Tshwane. A lot of talk has been doing the rounds around cloud computing, has the city jumped on the wagon as well? What has been done or proposed? There are potential benefits to be achieved through cloud computing, one of which is the ability to render services quicker. However there are other factors like security to be considered depending on whether a private or a public cloud is considered. The city is currently weighing its options on whether to go in that direction or not. What private/public partnerships has been entered into regarding ICT projects?  The model to be used for the broadband rollout will involve private partners. A partner will implement the broadband infrastructure at its own cost as part of the implementation model

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city has initiated a process that would lessen the burden on the consumer through some of the projects being implemented as mentioned above.

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e-Tshwane was launched as part of the City’s strategy to promote self service solutions. Within 4 months of the launch, the City already has more 30 000 accounts registered

How does the city plan to position itself around the adoption of iCt as a means to better service delivery ?  The City of Tshwane notes challenges around affordability as it relates to internet access hence the free Wi-Fi initiative. When planning ICT projects that overlaps with the provincial government, what consultations are involved to avoid duplication? There is a lot of synergy between the initiative from local and provincial government. For example the need to improve on service delivery is common between the three spheres of government, including the national government. It is important that initiatives across all spheres are aligned and complement each other. For example, the city is in the process of implementing its broadband infrastructure while the Gauteng Provincial Government is rolling out multiple links that will eventually connect all the municipalities in Gauteng. There is no duplication whatsoever in these initiatives In terms of priority where is ICT in the

city budget?  The city acknowledges the contribution that ICT can make towards improving service delivery and as such adequate budget is made available to make the key ICT projects a reality. Furthermore, the city has also started looking at alternative sources of funding to fast track ICT deployments. This approach acknowledges that there are many competing service delivery initiatives burdening the fiscus. Skills shortage has been a key concern with government, how is the city responding to the situation regarding ICT? Where skills shortage is identified as a barrier to a successful implementation of key projects, the city enters into partnerships with the private sector to enable the delivery thereof. The city is also focusing on development of its own HR resources in the process for sustainability of maintaining the environment. What are the key challenges regarding the use of ICT? Costs seems to be a major challenge regarding the use of ICT, however the

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What e-government projects is the city specifically taking or planning to?  The e-Tshwane initiative will enable the city to achieve most of the E-government targets by providing services online, 24 hours a day. Over the next few years, the city will intensify its approach to self –service solutions Reports suggest that there is a digital divide between the rich and poor, what is the city’s response to the suggested report by the national government? Broadband and free Wi-Fi addresses these issues. e-Tshwane coupled with the roll-out of kiosks, is bringing services closer to the people. These services allow residents to do business with the city 24/7. Currently the city has already implemented the first 35 kiosks spread all over Tshwane. What is the involvement of State Information Technology Agency( SITA) and SALGA regarding the city’s ICT infrastructure plans?  SALGA has recently published an ICT governance framework for municipality. The City is currently amending its own to align to the proposed framework How is the city aligned with the province’s e learning initiatives like Gauteng Online?   There are basic requirements for one  to participate in e-learning, any user who does not have internet connectivity is excluded from that exercise. So the rollout of free Wi-Fi creates a conducive environment for the successful implementation of e-learning. It should also be noted that e-learning does not only depend on the availability of infrastructure, but on the availability of relevant content that can be shared using available infrastructure. The free Wi-Fi initiative is focusing on making available massive volumes of educational content that can be accessed for free with no limit on a daily basis.

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Can SA’s broadband plan deliver affordable access

t is almost unthinkable that South Africa, one of Africa’s most developed economy, boosting the continent’s best and most extensive telecommunications infrastructure still charges some of the highest rates for Internet access. It is still a luxury to have Internet access at home especially for the vast majority of working class people living in the sprawling urban townships like Soweto and the many small towns dotted across the country. There appears to be light at the end of the tunnel, following the launch of South Africa Connect by Hon. Minister Yunus Carrim. A Broadband commission made up of industry experts has been finally selected to come up with a connectivity plan. However, SA still face many challenges and there are many issues to be considered in making this plan achievable.

Mobile broadband still too expensive

Those who do, still pay in excess of more than R150.00 for 1 Gigabytes of mobile broadband. For those with less to spare, they have to rely on buying data bundles on their smart phones that costs R15.00 for a paltry 100 MB. This is hardly enough to watch 2 music videos, but it keeps them connected for a few days for an occasional Facebook and WhatsApp update. This is simply not affordable for a country where majority of families still has household incomes below R5,000.00 per month.

Fixed-line broadband has limited coverage South Africa has a relatively low rate of fixed-line telephony, with around 4.2-million fixed-line connections. Around 900,000 of

these lines are used to deliver ADSL services. Unfortunately, the complicated process involved in applying for ADSL services including credit vetting and long lead-times for installation that often takes 8–12 weeks makes this option’s impact very limited. The theft of copper cables complicates the rollout of ADSL and some local exchanges still do not have DSLAMS or adequate fibre backhaul to support broadband access.

Failed policy of managed liberalization

Government’s policy of managed liberalization is largely to blame for SA’s current poor broadband record. This policy allowed Telkom, an in-efficient state monopoly that was partially privatized to extract monopoly rentals for more than 10 years. Telkom held a monopoly on the long distance terrestrial network, international private leased circuit (IPLC) market, controlled the only cable landing station into South Africa and controlled the copper last mile networks essential to reach customers. This it used to ruthlessly squeeze competitors out of the market using its IP Connect wholesale service. The recent competition commission’s case against Telkom for abusing its dominance that resulted in a R449 million fine gives a very sobering account of the cost of Telkom’s monopoly. It was only in 2004 that a court decision forced the end of the monopoly by granting value added network service providers the right to self-provide their own network infrastructure.

Successive Ministers failed to produce a connectivity plan

Five ministers of communications from 1999 till 2013 failed to come up

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with a credible plan to connect South Africans in an affordable manor. The frustration became so unbearable that some ISPs decided to take the Minister of Communications to court to force her to allow them to self-provide their own infrastructure and avoid the punitive charges that were being extorted by Telkom. By 2008, The Minister of Public Enterprises, Mr. Alec Erwin decided he would find his own solution to Telkom’s expensive terrestrial and international transmission capacity by establishing a rival telecoms infrastructure company called Broadband Infraco. This combined the fiber assets of the stateowned rail utility Transnet and power utility Eskom. Broadband Infraco has had mixed fortunes in delivering on this mandate especially with regard to the cost of terrestrial transmission capacity.

IP transit cost nearly 4 times than Ghana in 2006 It is interesting to note that back in 2005 – 2006, the cost for a 2 Mbps E1 full-duplex circuit in Ghana using the SAT-3 cable to London cost $4,500.00. The same service over the same SAT-3 cable cost an astonishing $20,000.00 in South Africa. This pricing has come down significantly since the launch of sub-sea cables like SEACOM and WACS. However there are still major pricing differences especially at the lower end of the spectrum for smaller ISPs, some of which are still paying more than $200 per Mbps as opposed to the much vaunted $60 - 80.00 per Mbps. Today, the cost of mobile broadband in Ghana is averaging around R76 per Gigabyte on MTN Ghana’s network. The same bandwidth costs R149 on Vodacom’s South African network. This is 2 times more expensive than in Ghana per GB.

BROADBAND

To attract private investment for the SA’s broadband plans, it is important to look at ways to aggregate public sector demand for connectivity

Structural issues in terrestrial transmission market

Telkom and even Broadband Infraco’s pricing of terrestrial transmission capacity distorts the cost of broadband in South Africa. As an example, the cost of a city-to-city link from Johannesburg to Durban or Cape Town still costs more than a link of similar capacity from South Africa to a major European Internet Exchange Point (IXP) like London’s tele-house. New competitors like Dark Fibre Africa (DFA) and FibreCo have recently entered this market and offered much needed competition. However, pricing for a point-to-point dark fibre pair spanning a mere 10 km can costs north of R50,000. This pricing model remains astonishingly high and keeps the cost of broadband higher while limiting access to only the privileged few. The broadband commission will need to address this market distortion if it is to make broadband more affordable and widely available.

Public-private-partnerships (PPP) ideal for funding fibre investments In order to secure the R65 billion that will likely be required to build the national fibre and wireless infrastructure required to deliver affordable

access, the commission will need to develop a clear policy framework that will encourage PPPs to build the required network infrastructure. In this regard, the commission is well advised to take a leaf out of the Dept. of Energy’s successful renewable energy independent power producer program (REIPPP). Due to its clear policy and legal framework as well as a power purchase arrangement with Eskom coupled with an effective and transparent procurement process, the DoE has been able to secure over $10 billion in private sector investment for renewable energy. South Africa has become the 5th largest recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the renewable energy market in a short space of time. Fibre investments tend to be expensive and complicated. It is important that South Africa develop a well-planned and coordinated program to build this network. Duplication of this infrastructure should be discouraged at all costs.

Poor last mile infrastructure is a big barrier It is crucial to realise that the major stumbling block to cheaper access in SA today lies in the poor access network. The copper local loop network has limited reach while the mobile operator’s 3G/4G access networks

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are expensive to deploy with limited capacity. Thus the prices for mobile broadband will remain significantly more expensive. The solution is to build a national open access wireless network using the 790 MHz digital dividend for underserved areas and 2,6 GHz for densely populated urban areas. This wholesale access network must be funded through a consortium of private sector operators as well as government and leased to all ISPs on a cost plus basis.

Aggregate public sector demand

To attract private investment for the SA’s broadband plans, it is important to look at ways to aggregate public sector demand for connectivity, which should serve as an anchor tenant for this network. It will also be crucial to device a clear and transparent procurement process that will not be subject to the usual issues associated with SA’s public procurement processes. This will enable especially remote and underserved areas to benefit from high speed and affordable terrestrial fibre capacity. The State IT Agency (SITA) together with SALGA (SA Local Government Association) can play a key role in aggregating demand across all the municipalities.