Dr Andile Ngcaba Chairperson of Fibreco
Ms Sekese. DG DoC
Hon Kholwane. PCC chair
Cllr Ncube and delegation ICASA
Mr Arif Husain. CEO Fibreco
Ladies and gentlemen
It is my honour to be addressing this historic event which is a product of outstanding leaders that contributed greatly in making our country and industry a better place for all. This is inspiring particularly when we consider the magnitude of the challenges facing our world today that may even seem insurmountable.
Programme director, we live in a world that is faced with major challenges of high levels of inequality, poverty and unemployment. These Siamese triplets of challenges continue to systematically erode key values that define the Ubuntu philosophy – the African view of life among many people who are perpetrators and victims of these challenges.
As we celebrate the centenary of the ANC this year and our 18th anniversary of freedom last month, we must answer a question on how can we rekindle the founding values of our organisation which shaped the quality of leaders produced by this country to selflessly spearhead the struggle for freedom. With a gripping drive for consumerism, frightening materialism and apparent indifference of many wealthy people to the suffering of millions of our people, how are we going to build a caring society, a better Africa and the world through ICTs?
President Zuma in his State of the Nation Address announced that as Government we will be placing greater emphasis in South African infrastructure development this year. In line with State of the Nation Address the Department of Communications and the ICT industry, through the compact signed with industry in 2011, we are echoing the same, putting emphasis on the roll - out of broadband, which all parties committed to 100% broadband coverage by 2020. Dr Ngcaba and the team I am pleased to learn that FIBRECO will be rolling out 12 000 kilometres open access long –haul Fibre Optic network, which is projected in excess of R 5 billion over 5 years.
This investment indeed contributes to the compact signed with major industry players, responding to the call of creating 100 000 jobs by 2020 and of course infrastructure investment has the potential to reduce poverty and inequality by increasing access to services.
Ladies and gentlemen, I hope the entrance of FIBRECO in the market will enable us to maximise broadband to the home in our quest to ensure universal access to all. I am told as we speak broadband to the home is estimated at 2% and this situation cannot continue unabated. I am aware you are in business to make profit and I know you are equally aware that the more people have access, or are connected and there is significant uptake, the quicker you breakeven and begin to see your return on investment thereby improving your bank balance.
Of this 2%, the majority of connections are on ADSL over copper with its limited bandwidth. Users have only recently been exposed to 10Mbit/s speeds over copper where in a number of countries speeds of 100Mbit/s are now seen as the minimum or broadband entry level product. Many South African fixed line users are still limited to using dial up services with speeds of 64kbit/s and below.
It is however universally accepted that the path to high broadband access speeds lies with optic fibre, where the optic fibre is taken as close to the broadband user as possible. It is an ultimate aim of any broadband implementation to deploy fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and fibre-to-the-business (FTTB) with its nearly limitless bandwidth and ease of upgradability.
In order for South Africa to improve its position in world broadband rankings it is essential that the broadband coverage, penetration and speed are increased, through among others, optic fibre. It is seen as essential by the Department and is thus part of future strategy that the fibre is extended as close as possible to the user, which is, broadband to the business and the home.
South African users are demanding cheaper, better and quality ICT services as the users become well informed with regards to ICT services and their capabilities. It is thus extremely encouraging to see that FIBRECO is committed to invest in new fibre infrastructure in the country. It is also noted with great expectation that this investment is aligned with and satisfies many of the current aims of the Department namely: Increasing local investment; Reducing barriers for efficient broadband infrastructure by being an open access network; Increasing competition; Migrating to universal access and service; Cost and price reduction; and Service quality measurement and control by means of service level agreements (SLA).
It is thus with the above in mind and realising that this fibre based infrastructure will increase the access of our citizens to ICT based services that I am pleased and honoured to part of this initiative and development and therefore have the pleasure of turning over the first ground sod.
My humble request to FIBRECO is, please let us work very close with provinces and Municipalities as we roll – out this infrastructure to avoid perpetual digging of the ground by operators. Municipalities and residents cannot afford degraded roads caused by forever digging of roads, I know you have South Africa at heart and are capable of finding mechanism to encourage interoperability. It is our responsibility to ensure that as we talk of convergence we also begin to integrate our plans to suit the beneficiaries, your consumers who happen to be my people and voters.
To you all from Fibreco welcome to the industry and wish you a healthy competition ahead.
I thank you.
Speech by the Deputy Minister of Communications Honourable Stella Tembisa Ndabeni, MP at the Launch of FIBRECO at Summer Place, Hyde Park, Johannesburg
