affordable internet

In a series of 12 small villages in the Eastern Cape, residents are showing the world how access to cost-effective wireless communication network can be achieved. Read more here about this incredible achievement.

Mankosi, a remote rural community in the Eastern Cape, is home to almost 6 000 people. The nearest city is Mthatha, about 60 kilometres away, as the crow flies. Most homes in the villages are not connected to the electricity grid and residents charge their cellphones at a local shop or shebeen, for which they must pay.

Tim Genders, Chairperson of WAPA, says that the goal is that every home in South Africa should be connected to the internet, with equitable pricing, within the next 10 years. And WAPA members will play a huge role in this programme, which is why we are covering the Spectrum Licensing process.

While one of the goals – connectivity to every household – may be a reality, the same cannot be said of the affordability/equitability of pricing. It is no secret that low-income areas pay 80 times more for data than data in high-income areas.

ICASA has delayed the implementation date for certain regulations relating to an option to opt-out of notification for depletion of voice, SMS and data services and the out-of-bundle usage requirements for the end user. D-day is 12 April 2019, to allow the carriers time to configure their systems and processes. Rollover of unused data, data transfer and defaulting onto out of bundle charges regulations came into force on March 2019. Read more on this subject by Paul Colmer

WAPA Committee member Paul Colmer takes a tongue-in-cheek look at the hype around 5G and the related Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR).

The hype is everywhere, it’s the answer to all world evils, it’s 5G. Is it real and what can we expect from our galactic adventure? The problem lies in the fact that the hype is there to herd the investors into the trillion-dollar global playing field but where there is hype you require a new vocabulary to fuel it. This inevitably leads to confusion. Read more about cutting through the confusion