By Molatlhegi Kgauwe
“The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn't think they could learn before, and so in a sense, it is all about potential,” said Steven Ballmer.
Ballmer, the American business magnate and investor who served as the chief executive officer of Microsoft from 2000 to 2014, was and is still spot on. Today, whether we are streaming videos at home or uploading large files or documents daily at work or at school, we rely on a fast, dependable internet connection to live our modern lives comfortably.
We use broadband to pass those digital signals into our homes and devices. It’s much faster.
However more digital infrastructure, and broadband roll-out, is required to handle the massive increase in, and reliance on, computing now and in the future.
Therefore broadband implementation remains one of the biggest ICT socio-economic game changers when planned and resourced comprehensively.
Lest we forget that COVID lockdown connectivity imperatives helped us to stay connected. The home became the epicentre of collaboration, work, education and lifestyle management.
To stay connected, fibre broadband played and still plays an instrumental role in enabling this connected experience.
Therefore the need for reliable, high quality and fast broadband connectivity are crucial to everyday life now more than ever before.
So, what can be done to accelerate broadband connectivity and bridge South Africa’s digital divide?
Broadband implementation
Throughout the country, a key lesson being learnt is that investment in infrastructure to support service delivery is key. The adoption of digital solutions and applications is dependent on the infrastructure that supports it, and the capital investments that modernise our product and service offerings.
Broadband is the enabler and the bridge to create a digital reality, that is accessible to all. It is intrinsic to the provision of needed services to the marginalised; whilst enriching the economy with much-valued socio-economic opportunities, in the areas of localisation.
Added to this equation is that network performance, agility and flexibility is key to modernisation and consistent service availability. An automated, dynamic and programmatic approach to managing connectivity is critical for quality-of-service.
The benefit of this automation is critical as it moves non-critical traffic, onto lower-cost internet, and allows network engineers to manage the traffic during congestion or a link failure.
Therefore, high-speed fibre broadband remains one of the most important enabling tools that will foster and grow a connected economy.
National Infrastructure Plan
To achieve the goal of providing universal internet we – the private and public sectors - have to overcome obstacles, particularly infrastructure roll-out and a much-needed digital transformation of public services and policy changes.
Fortunately, the government's National Infrastructure Plan (NIP) 2050, details a plan to introduce universal digital connectivity to households, with a target of making up to 50G of data per month available to every home by 2025.
However, the plan shows that only 10% of the population currently has access to the internet at home or access through public facilities and internet penetration varies significantly by region, with Limpopo having the lowest level of broadband connectivity.
There has been poor progress in the digital enablement of government services. Yet e-services have the potential to reduce costs and the cost of living for citizens by reducing or eliminating the need to travel and queue for government services, the NIP says. Sita Strategic Initiatives 2020 - 2025
We at the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), the government’s centralised information communication technology (ICT) buying and services arm, are working towards realising a technology-advanced citizen-centric era. Our vision for the future is transforming government into a secure, integrated, transparent and trusted digital entity.
In our annual GovTech conference held at the end of 2022 attended by 2500 government and Industry leaders to discuss the latest developments in the world of ICT, we are committed to deploying innovative transversal and sector-specific solutions and applications with the view of end-to-end public service value chains to derive impact, citizen convenience and improved experience of public services.
The critical success factors include:
Citizens with affordable access to broadband connectivity;
Established government-wide data governance capability;
Availability of sound infrastructure to meet technology demands and opportunities;
Investment in training and up-skilling of information communication professionals;
The empowerment of less digitally literate communities;
Ensuring that transformative initiatives are supported by change management initiatives;
The provision of digital infrastructure such as broadband, software-defined network, unified communication and
Driving the adoption of government cloud, accelerating the modernisation of data centres.
National ICT Challenges
We are cognisant that there are challenges to be addressed nationally. The challenges include the lack of a uniform ICT investment and consumption model throughout government. The sparse application of enabling policies and legislation for total government digitalisation is another reality that must be tackled with vigour. These interdependent metrics are becoming increasingly important as national ICT spending increases.
Public sector ICT spend must credibly showcase the value of digitalisation, and every digital innovation should have clear metrics of success so that the spends translates into realized objectives and outcomes.
Broadband roll-out will deepen ICT skills and capabilities, enable e-commerce, digital finance and digital entrepreneurship, connect under-served communities and households to public institutions and enhance competition as well as enhance universal access obligations.
To achieve our nation’s goals in ICT, high-speed broadband must be available in under-served areas and should be affordable and accessible to low-income communities. All government buildings must be connected with high-speed broadband.
A positive digital experience — one that is equitable, accessible, secure, mobile-enabled, reliable and consistently available is key to increasing citizen satisfaction.
- Molatlhegi Kgauwe is the Acting Managing Director of the State Information Technology Agency (SITA).