> ICT in South Africa April - May 2005

ICT in South Africa
April  May, 2005


What is new!!!
South African mobile operator Cell C has dismissed media reports emanating from the Middle East that suggest the company is the target of a takeover by Virgin Mobile. It is widely known that Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Mobile has been looking into the possibility of moving into the SA market, but Cell C claims that while it has engaged in talks with Virgin Mobile, these have been about potential mutual business opportunities and co-operation in the local telecoms sector, according to a company statement.
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Gauteng Provincial Government has increased the budget allocation to ICT-related projects. This comes after the tabling of the Gauteng provincial government budget, which promised hundreds of millions of Rands to fast-tracking the Gauteng Online initiative, growing the Gauteng Shared Services Centre (GSSC) and supporting small business development in the province. Provincial Finance and Economic Affairs Minister, Paul Mashatile, said the R33.5 billion (approximately C$6,8 billion) budget for the coming year would fund priorities of the provincial government as outlined in the five-year strategic plan and the Gauteng Growth and Development Strategy (GDS), which will be launched later this month. ICT has been identified as a crucial factor in growing Gauteng's economy.
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Massive cost saving incentives are pushing government to implement e-government strategies, but they are currently far off the pace, delegates at an e-government conference last April. Joe Mazibuko, State Information Technology Agency (SITA) Marketing Services Managing Executive, told delegates that e-government would achieve greater transparency, revenue growth, cost reduction and convenience for local citizens. According to a study conducted by Accenture, SA is lagging in terms of e-government readiness, with countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Portugal all ahead of South Africa. But while there is still much work to be done, Mazibuko said SA was making progress and was in the process of rolling out certain e-government strategies, pointing to the e-Government Gateway Project launched last year August. The project aims to develop a single online system that will provide South Africans with access to government services any time, anywhere.
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SA is closer to a smart card-based identity system, with the news that Home Affairs has awarded a R32 million (approximately C$6.6 million) IT contract to help clean up its database. The department is implementing business intelligence technology from SAS Institute SA to help clean up its 80TB database in time for the roll-out of the proposed Hanis card system next year. Hanis (the Home Affairs National Identification System) will ultimately replace about 30 million identity books with multifunctional smart cards over the next few years. The SAS deal is for an Enterprise Intelligence Platform and Professional Services implementation. SAS says the technology will assist with fraud detection, the elimination of bad-quality or duplicated data, and ensure the department has a single view of the citizen. The Hanis smart card system has been in the pipeline for several years, having been conceived in 1993 and approved by the Cabinet in January 1996. The aim of Hanis is to record all fingerprints, photographs and other data digitally and allow several levels of verification that will be used whenever a government service is requested. This includes pension payments, unemployment payments and access to the health system.
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Representatives of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries recently met in Swaziland to discuss ways in which their cyber legislation could be harmonised. Issues under discussion included hacking and computer fraud, but the question of privacy was not discussed. Organised by the Commonwealth Network of Information Technology for Development and the Centre of Specialisation in Public Administration and Management, the conference was aimed at informing permanent secretaries (senior civil servants) and public service directors involved in overseeing IT in government.
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Under Serviced Area Licensees (USALs) will be the catalyst for economic development in the second economy, said Communications Minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri. The Minister was speaking at the signing of an agreement between Vodacom and five USALs. Vodacom entered into an agreement with Bokamosa Consortium, Karabotel, Bokone Telecomms, Amatole Telecomms and Kingdom Communications, engaging the USALs as independent licensed telecommunications operators in the industry. In terms of the agreement, Vodacom will provide a regional roaming service enabling USAL customers to make and receive calls and SMS within the USAL's licensed area using the Vodacom network. Even though some of the USALs have opted not to initially build their own networks, they will develop and sell their own services, under their own brand at their own retail tariffs. The USALs will be able to move their customers off the Vodacom network and services over time, as and when the USALs construct their own network infrastructure.
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The number of mobile subscribers in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and East African Community (EAC) regions will grow to 55 million by 2009, says African ICT analyst firm BMI-TechKnowledge. There are currently around 30 million mobile users in the regions. Brian Neilson, Research Director at BMI-T, says although South Africa has the most subscribers, it is expected that in future, an equal amount of new investment in telecoms infrastructure will come from other southern African countries. Neilson says South Africa alone has about 22 million mobile subscribers. By 2009, this could increase to around 30 million to 35 million subscribers, if one counts gross subscriber numbers. He says the EAC region, which includes Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, has a relatively untapped telecommunications market, giving it the next largest mobile sector growth potential after SA. With the mobile sector showing a massive growth rate, consulting companies, equipment vendors and operators have begun to seek new ways to grow the telecoms sector in the SADC/EAC regions. Neilson adds that fixed-line and Internet connectivity uptake has been disappointing, but fixed wireless access technology has the potential of re-igniting the fixed-line market in the region. He concludes that with the second national operator coming into play in SA, there could be an even greater emphasis on rolling out fixed wireless infrastructure.
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The JSE could see a technology and telecommunications listing boom with pan-African cellular operator Celtel and small IT companies mulling raising capital on the bourse. JSE listings director John Burke says the exchange has been in discussion with the advisors of a number of local technology companies that are considering listing as they seek to raise capital to help expand their businesses.
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The long-awaited Second National Operator (SNO) expects to be licensed within the next few months and should be ready for business before the end of this year. Karl Socikwa, SNO spokesman and chairman of the SNO shareholders' steering committee, says that following extensive work by the shareholders, the SNO's business plan has been prepared for submission to the regulator, and its shareholders' agreement will also be in place soon. The SNO is an entity that comprises a 15% shareholding for each of Transtel and Eskom Enterprises, a 19% shareholding for empowerment partner Nexus Connexion and a 51% strategic equity shareholding, of which 26% is held by Tata Africa and 12.5% each by CommuniTel and Two Consortium.
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Spending on research and development (R&D) in SA increased to R10.1 billion last year from the R7.5 billion spent in various sciences in 2002/03, says the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The figures are contained in the findings of the latest national survey on research and development, due to be made public by the Minister of Science and Technology, Mosibudi Mangena. The survey says in terms of gross domestic product (GDP), R&D spending now represents 0.81% of the country's output compared with 0.75%. However, this is still far behind most developed countries, with Sweden spending the equivalent of 4.27% of its GDP, followed by Finland with 3.46%.


Useful websites
Department of Communications www.doc.gov.za
Department of Trade & Industry www.thedti.gov.za
South African Technology Vanguard (SAVANT) www.savant.co.za
Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) www.icasa.org.za
State Information Technology Agency www.sita.co.za
Computer Society of South Africa www.cssa.org.za
Information Technology Association: www.ita.org.za
Radio, Appliance and Television Association of SA www.tecnet.co.za/assoc
Black Information Technology Forum (BIT4M) www.bitf.co.za


Upcoming events in South Africa and in the region

AFRICA GIS 2005 (http://www.africagis2005.org.za) offers a unique opportunity and platform for organizations to showcase their respective experiences, expertise and achievements to a wide-ranging audience from the African continent who share common interests in the geo-information field. Natural Resources Canada will be having a pavilion at this event. A five day Technical and Project Exhibition will be run concurrently with the conference, where exhibitors will be exposed to the influential delegates and decision makers participating in the conference. The Technical Exhibition would be a prime opportunity to showcase products, services and the latest technological developments in the GIS environment. Dates: 30 October to 4 November 2005 at CSIR International Convention Centre, Tshwane (Pretoria), South Africa

VoIP World Africa 2005 (http://www.terrapinn.com/2005/voipza) will bring together director level speakers and delegates from service providers, telecomm operators, corporate end-users and technology developers. The conference will push forward the business model and technology covering the key challenges in the industry, drawing on the expertise of top executives and key officials. Dates: 5 - 7 April 2005 at Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa

THE AFRICAN BROADBAND REVOLUTION 2005 (overcoming technical & financial barriers to broadband deployment) takes place from 6-8 April 2005 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Sandton, Johannesburg. For further information, visit http://www.cto.int/abr05/index.php?page=register or contact Dervish Mertcan on d.mertcan@cto.int.

Futurex (www.futurex.co.za) provides the perfect forum for technology thought leaders and key business buyers to meet to discuss the technologies, equipment, systems, services and business solutions critical to success in the e-business age. Dates: 17 - 20 May 2005 at Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa

The ninth Contact Centres World Africa 2005 (http://www.terrapinn.com/2005/ccwza/) conference will be held at the Sandton Convention Centre later this year. The annual conference, hosted by Terrapinn, will be held on 26 and 27 July with master classes taking place on 25, 28 and 29 July. This event offers a marketing opportunity to showcase your products, services and solutions to a targeted audience of decision makers.

Women in ICT: Challenges & Opportunities Forum will be taking place from 3-5 August 2005 in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is a Pan-African conference covering all gender issues related to ICT development in Africa

ACT 2005  The seventh annual African Computing & Telecommunications Summit will take place from 6-9 September, 2005 at the Hilton Hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa. The theme is Matching investors & partners with African ICT enterprises & projects.


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