{"id":25946,"date":"2012-11-07T10:03:08","date_gmt":"2012-11-07T08:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=25946"},"modified":"2012-11-07T10:05:15","modified_gmt":"2012-11-07T08:05:15","slug":"doc-plans-to-be-big-player-in-broadband-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/25946\/doc-plans-to-be-big-player-in-broadband-market\/","title":{"rendered":"DoC plans to be big player in broadband market"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Communications<\/a> has made it clear that it plans to be a significant player in the South African telecommunications and broadband market.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the \u201cBroadband Policy and Implementation Plan Workshop\u201d held at Vodacom<\/a> World on 6 November 2012, the DoC\u2019s Norman Munzhelele<\/a> said that government will continue to be a critical investor in the development of broadband networks.<\/p>\n

Munzhelele highlighted that they will be particularly active in areas where there are market failures. \u201cThat is a very, very strong message we are sending,\u201d said Munzhelele.<\/p>\n

He added that state-owned companies are central in delivering wholesale broadband networks. It is assumed that Munzhelele is referring to companies such as Sentech<\/a>, Broadband Infraco<\/a>, and potentially Telkom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Open access wholesale networks<\/h3>\n

He added that government will encourage the rollout of wholesale open access networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a whole theory about open access \u2013 whether it has worked and so on \u2013 but we will not know if we have not tried it in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to Munzhelele wholesale open access networks are key to create a level playing field, and boost competition to allow anyone who wants to offer services to gain access to these networks.<\/p>\n

Broadband access networks<\/h3>\n

The DoC said that it sees broadband as a utility, and that it has to be made available universally to all parts of the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to form part of basic like water, roads and electricity to be made available to all,\u201d said Munzhelele.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will support and encourage measures to encourage fibre to the premise by the private sector.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

DoC committed to talking about broadband and ICT<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

DoC spectacularly behind broadband and IT jobs targets<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Talk, talk, talk, but no action whatsoever<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Will the DoC ever get its act together?<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Please don\u2019t mess this one up as well, DoC<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Department of Communications says that it will be a player in the South African telecommunications and broadband market<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[58,1444,26],"class_list":["post-25946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-broadband-1","tag-doc","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25946"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25960,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25946\/revisions\/25960"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}