Several South African municipalities are looking at offering telecommunications services as a service to residents or have already begun to do so, says Dr Andrew Hutchison, T-Systems South Africa’s business manager for telecommunications.
“The information and communication technology [ICT] industry has witnessed some dramatic changes over the past few years, with cellular operators now offering data services, certain internet service providers offering television services over the network and now some metropolitan councils looking to provide telecoms services to residents,” he says.
While this trend is not as hyped as voice-over-internet protocol, it still has immense potential to help the country bridge its digital gaps.
“With World Telecommunications Day [on May 17] upon us, it seems appropriate to look at how these municipalities are attempting to offer broader services at lower cost to their residents,” Hutchison says. “Unlike the national licensed operators, the independent metropolitan area networks will allow municipalities to bill usage as part of the same civil services as lights and water, for example.”
Knysna has already set up a citywide infrastructure that allows internet access for its residents, while both Cape Town and Durban are in the process of issuing tenders requests for such services.
“South Africa’s changing regulatory environment and the fact that government has made it clear that reducing the cost of telecoms is critical have spurred councils into action. Private networks were traditionally constrained from crossing public roads, which were demarcated as network boundaries.”
An example of this would be a campus network at a university, which is legal as long as it is within the confines of the campus, but becomes illegal once it crosses a public road.
“Although there is still some debate as to whether municipalities themselves can do this, the councils that are going ahead with such services are maintaining that as they effectively own the roads too, they are not actually crossing any demarcated boundaries,” Hutchison says.
Although such metropolitan networks have the potential to disrupt the existing telecoms models, they also offer councils telecoms opportunities where none existed before, which includes cheaper services to residents and lower costs to attract new businesses.
New business operations in the city add job-creation and skills-development spin-offs, which — along with cheaper call costs — will be of enormous benefit to the man in the street and the entire industry.
“These networks will help to bridge the communication gaps within our society, especially in areas that are either disadvantaged or unconnected,” says Hutchison.
“In terms of providing services to areas with no prior coverage, there are a lot of interesting wireless technologies available. Internationally, T-Systems has already deployed technologies that can provide coverage of up to 50km; this is not a broadband service naturally, but it does at least bridge the gap in terms of both connectivity and voice,” he claims.
The concept of the metropolitan area network is not exclusive to South Africa, as it has already been rolled out by San Francisco in the United States and Westminster in London.
“South Africa can learn from the challenges and solutions these fore-runners instrumented, supported by insight to the best service offerings on such networks.
“Through an initiative such as the metropolitan area networks, we will see the cost of local loops dropping, making South Africa a stronger destination for business process outsourcing operations, such as call centres. This will lead to job-creation opportunities, which are essential for the growth of the nation as a whole,” concludes Hutchison.