The department of communications will study the market over the next year to test the feasibility of introducing a fourth cellular operator for South Africa.
Joe Mjara, the department’s deputy director-general, told journalists after a presentation to Parliament’s communications portfolio committee on Tuesday that this was in line with the telecommunications legislation.
”Before 2004 we need to review the market structure… and see whether it can be expanded.”
Government would have to report back to Parliament before the end of the 2003/04 financial year on the results of the feasibility study, he said.
The country’s rapidly-growing cellular phone industry is currently made up of Vodacom and MTN, and Cell C, which joined the market in 2001.
Mjara told the committee, during hearings on its budget for next year, the department would embark on a programme to help make the internet more relevant for South Africans.
It intended convening a ”language and content summit”, and was looking at translating government websites into the country’s other official languages.
”Internet is the most irrelevant content ever,” he said, adding that most of the information presently was focused towards the United States and Europe.
Government planned to increase the number of public internet terminals (PITs) across the country, and to make available a PIT truck for each province.
The PITs are kiosks, largely in rural areas, in which people have free access to the internet and e-mail facilities.
Mjara also said 18 citizen’s post offices (CPOs) would be rolled out over the next year, to add to the seven already up and running.
The CPOs would provide digital communications infrastructure and services, including fax and telephone facilities, to historically disadvantaged areas at minimal cost, he said. – Sapa