South Africa has fallen further behind the rest of the world when it comes to broadband penetration rates.
The Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) recently released their June 2007 broadband subscriber numbers. According to these statistics the number of broadband subscribers in the OECD increased 24% from 178 million in June 2006 to 221 million subscribers in June 2007.
This growth increased broadband penetration rates in the OECD from 15.1 in June 2006 to 18.8 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants one year later. This equates to an annual growth of 3.7%.
Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Korea, Norway and Iceland lead the OECD in broadband penetration, each with over 29 subscribers per 100 inhabitants.
The strongest per-capita subscriber growth over the last year was in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Australia, Norway, Denmark and Luxembourg. Each country added more than 5 subscribers per 100 inhabitants over the past 12 months.
South African numbers
South Africa currently has around 730 000 broadband subscribers, equating to a broadband penetration rate of approximately 1.5 %. This is 12 times less than the OECD average.
It is further telling that the yearly OECD growth – namely 3.7 % - is 246 % more than the total broadband growth which South Africa achieved since ADSL was launched back in 2002.
The OECD’s Taylor Reynolds recently said that remedying the local broadband scenario will rely heavily on a more competitive environment which can be fast tracked by interventions like local loop unbundling, open access fiber infrastructure and removing all hurdles to international investments in the telecoms space.
The Department of Communications is unfortunately dragging their feet on initiatives which will introduce competition and it remains to be seen whether ICASA will be able to meet their own deadlines to license competitors to Telkom.