Chris Locke, Managing Director, GSMA Mobile for Development,
Ms Suvi Linden, Former Minister of the Government of Finland and Special Envoy to the Broadband Commission,
Manoj Kohli, CEO and Joint Managing Director, Bharti Airtel,
Government and business leaders from the telecoms industry,
Distinguished guests,
Ladies and gentlemen,
Buenos dias,
Bonjour,
Good morning.
It is wonderful to be here in the beautiful city of Barcelona. I’m not sure if Barcelona is more famous for hosting the 1992 Olympic Games or for its world admired soccer team Barcelona FC. Of course we all know Spain’s world cup winning team consists of mainly Barca players.
As South Africans we were proud to host the Spanish team at the World Cup and we are sure that our hospitality went some way to them winning the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa. I am glad that the same hospitality has been extended to us at the 2013 World Mobile Congress.
Señoras y señores,
While many organisations and sectors meet on an annual basis, not many of them work in a sector that is constantly changing. The pace of technological change in the mobile sector has astounded the world and made those of us who work in this sector profoundly aware of the opportunities that lie in this field.
The African continent has been quick to seize the opportunities that cellular technology has provided. South Africa has been at the forefront of this mobile revolution. Currently there are numerous initiatives across the South African public and private sector that are making phenomenal use of mobile broadband to support socio-economic development.
One of the priorities of our government is education. We have made significant progress. South Africa has almost met the Millennium Development Goal target of achieving universal access to primary education, well before the 2015 deadline. The advent of mobile broadband has also changed the face of education.
South Africa’s Department of Basic Education and several local and international companies have initiated the Vodacom Mobile Education Programme. The focus of the programme is two-fold. The first is to improve the standard of education of mathematics and physical science, which are two of the most difficult subjects for learners in South Africa.
The second is to improve the quality of teaching by ensuring that teachers in both urban and rural areas have access to the highest quality teaching resources. Each of the country’s nine provinces is being provided with an ICT Resource Centre that serves as a district teacher-training hub. They are equipped with computer classrooms with 50 terminals, and an internet café.
Training focuses on ICT literacy, as well as the effective use and integration of digital content in the classroom. The Digital Classroom provides a wealth of web-based resources and teaching material for educators to access on the internet, and is presented in an accessible and attractive manner.
This is just one way in which mobile technology has contributed to our country’s socio-economic development. While computers are expensive, mobile technology provides an affordable, easy-to-use communication tool that is constantly accessible.
Esteemed guests,
South Africa’s most widely-used mobile messaging and social network is MXIt, which is said to reach up to 40 percent of the population. MXIt has formed collaborations with a number of institutions to provide educational information on a variety of subjects. MXIt partners with cities and school districts to provide personal tutoring and curricula in mathematics, for use inside and outside the classroom.
Teachers are provided with an established curricula and student performance results to help tailor future lessons. Outside the classroom, students can obtain answers to math questions through direct access to a real-life tutor. For those young people struggling to achieve their driver’s licence, MXIt provides instructional videos and questions to help them pass their test. I’m told that over 85 000 people utilised this service in the first month alone.
Delegates,
eHealth is another area that is benefitting from the spread of mobile broadband. eHealth is considered to be the combined utilization of electronic communication and information technology to generate, capture, transmit, store and retrieve digital data for clinical and administrative purposes.
It plays an important role in ensuring a better life for all, ensuring access to health services as well as maintaining the effective and efficient delivery of health care. e-Health applications address the digital divide between rural and urban populations, the unequal distribution of health resources between rural and urban areas and the unequal distribution of health professionals.
It's impossible to underestimate the health care crisis in Africa. Over 5.6 million people are stricken with HIV/AIDS in South Africa alone. Cell-Life Aftercare, a joint project between the University of Cape Town and Peninsula University of Technology uses mobile technology to track patients.
The mobile technology-based Aftercare program supports the effective treatment of HIV/AIDS patients, and covers other aspects such as voluntary counselling. Each Aftercare worker is assigned to monitor 15 to 20 patients. The worker visits the patient in his or her home, and in a one- on-one session discusses the patient’s current treatment.
Using their mobile phones for data capture, Aftercare workers record information about patient medical status, drug adherence, and other factors that may affect a patient’s anti-retroviral therapy.
Ladies and gentlemen,
Cheap and efficient mobile technologies are changing the lives of people in developing areas who are burdened by unequal access to resources and information. Health and education are only two areas among many that are benefitting from the prevalence of mobile broadband.
Mobiles also offer greater independence for women by opening new avenues of information and affording greater personal privacy. They also offer women greater security, not only as emergency tools, but also to report and monitor violence against women. And where once women may have needed male relatives to act as intermediaries, mobile platforms now provide them the chance to make decisions for their economic wellbeing by and for themselves, which can also facilitate female entrepreneurship.
Mobile technology is being used to improve service delivery across a variety of sectors and reduces the gap between communities and their public representatives, holding the latter more accountable.
Distinguished panellists,
In the light of the above the South African government is taking steps to ensure that mobile broadband penetration reaches optimum levels in our country. According to a recent study commissioned by the Department of Communications, fixed and fixed-wireless broadband penetration is estimated at 2 percent.
Of those households that had access to Internet 16,3 percent is via mobile phones, 8,6 percent from home and 5,6 percent from elsewhere and 4,7 percent from work. This can be ascribed to the high cost of communication through a lack of appropriate broadband infrastructure, particularly in rural areas.
Nevertheless more South Africans – 29 million – use mobile phones than radio (28 million), television (27 million) or personal computers (6 million). In addition, only 5 million South African use landline phones. The want for mobile broadband has never been greater. Rapid growth in mobile broadband traffic is driving the need for additional mobile network capacity, thereby increasing spectrum requirements in markets across the world.
Similar to most countries this exponential growth in mobile data traffic, video traffic, is driven by uptake of smartphones, tablets and dongles in South Africa. This in the end requires additional radio spectrum, not just any spectrum but frequencies that can provide a combination of extended coverage and indoor penetration, complemented with frequencies enhancing capacity.
Therefore, a combination of low frequencies for coverage requirements, particularly of sparsely populated zones and high frequencies to add capacity in traffic hotspots is vitally important. However, achieving this with fewer base stations and low cost is equally critical, which further raises the question of accelerating the release of the “Digital Dividend”.
South Africa is working on a policy and regulatory framework that will assist Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) by ensuring equitable access to spectrum. The use of the “Digital Dividend” will be vital in ensuring rural connectivity and improvement in universal access and service. We are also aware that to be an effective national MNO, one would need both high capacity and coverage radio frequencies.
Our Government policy is to have a holistic approach in dealing with the “Digital Dividend” and we have developed a national broadband plan similar to that adopted by many developing and emerging economies.
Ladies and gentlemen,
From our perspective broadband is needed for economic development as well as social inclusion. It is for this reason that the South African Government has prioritized high speed broadband. Similarly, universal access to quality broadband is equally important to achieve social inclusion and reducing the digital divide.
South Africa’s national broadband policy and e-strategy will inform the spectrum policy framework. The national e-strategy should, amongst other things, outline requirements for mobile services for deployment of mobile broadband, interventions on lowering the cost of telecommunication services and a model that will address market failures, especially lack of sufficient rural connectivity.
This national e-strategy is outlined in our National Development Plan vision 2030 and will cut across all Government departments and sectors.
It will aim to create sector growth and innovation through policy coordination that drives public and private sector investments in areas such as network upgrade and extension, particularly in mobile broadband.
The national e-strategy will also ensure that South Africa engages effectively and coherently on issues of regional integration and harmonization – interacting with various institutions, including Information Communication Technology (ICT) governance agencies such as the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).
We have observed a lack of funding for unprofitable areas which then implies that MNOs must cross-subsidize rural areas from profits in urban areas. In this regard the Government intends to work hand-in-hand with the private sector to find solutions within the framework of the national e-strategy.
We are also convinced that to stimulate investment growth in South Africa mobile broadband is the future for supporting a path to universal access particularly for Internet, m-government, e-economy, and e-society.
Great progress has been shown in this regard as our surveys indicate that the South African broadband market is dominated by 3G/HSPA connections and ADSL connections, together accounting for 95% of broadband connections.
In our view mobility is vital for supporting entrepreneurship and uplifting communities by connecting schools, health centres and other public institutions. However, given low levels of disposable income this can only be a reality through affordable and exciting mobile broadband offerings.
Clearly, the mobile market and the potential of mobile technology to increase access and communication hold much promise for South Africa and other developing countries. However, despite the tremendous growth of mobile, there remain significant obstacles to its uptake. High prices and the fact that older and cheaper phones are not enabled with key technologies are just two of these obstacles.
I am thus glad to witness at this 2013 Mobile World Congress cheaper smartphones that will appeal to the masses. They may initially not have the brand consciousness of the Apples and Samsungs, but I am sure their functionalities will ensure mass appeal in the developing world.
In June 2008, our regulatory body, the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) gazetted regulations aimed at preventing consumers from being locked into long-term contracts with mobile operators.
According to the new regulations, consumers will be given the option to choose the period of their mobile phone contracts, from six, twelve, eighteen, to 24 months. This move, as well as efforts in the policy and regulatory environment, is to promote increased competition, and more affordable pricing.
Distinguished guests,
I have mentioned some of the instances where mobile broadband is changing the face of our country. Innovative use of cellular technology is altering the way government and society works. South Africa, like the Spanish football team, La Roja, is geared to take advantage of the opportunities provided by mobile broadband.
I thank you!
