Data to be free in South Africa?
Data will be free in South Africa in the future and will be packaged in different ways to lower the barrier to entry for users.
This is according to Vox Telecom CEO, Jacques du Toit, who said in an interview on CNBC Africa that South Africa was a “phenomenally deflationary environment”.
“Voice is coming down at a rate of about 13% to 14% a year, data and Internet access is about 20% a year,” du Toit said.
“Ultimately data, we believe, will be free. It will be packaged in different ways but what’s happening is it is lowering the barrier to entry.”
Du Toit said that with lower costs and the massive deflation South Africa was facing, “we are giving access to Internet and voice services to more and more people in South Africa”.
A report out by the ITU’s Measuring Information Society shows that South Africa’s information and communication technology costs are quite rich when compared on a global scale, ranking 93rd out of 166 countries .
The full Biznews interview can be accessed here