South Africa Net growth slows, other nations pick up

As most African countries step up liberalization of their telecommunications markets in order to expand Internet penetration, regulation is stifling South Africa's Web growth, according to a trade group official.

South Africa's Internet ranking in Africa has fallen since 2000, when it had 2.4 million subscribers, representing 53 percent of the users across the continent, according to William Stucke, management committee member of the Internet Service Providers' Association of South Africa (ISPA).

South Africa now has only 9 percent of Africa's total Internet subscriber base, with 5.1 million users. Between 2000 and 2008, South Africa added about 2.7 million new subscribers, compared to 10 million in Nigeria, 8 million in Egypt, 7 million in Morocco and 3 million in Kenya over the same period.

"Over the past 10 years, the rest of Africa has grown its Internet subscriber base 10 times the pace of industrialized and rich South Africa. We are a long way off from having a satisfactory Internet penetration," Stucke said via e-mail.

Stucke said the regulatory uncertainty around license fees, spectrum licensing, interconnection and local loop unbundling has hindered ISPs' ability to draw up business plans for services and infrastructure.

Last year, the South African high court ruled that all registered communication companies in the country had the right to self-provide (provide their own bandwidth) rather than depend on the government-owned Telkom South Africa.

But the South African government, Stucke said, has been insisting on maintaining ownership in the major telecom networks, which he said limits competition and raises costs for communications and competing telecom companies.