{"id":42336,"date":"2013-07-18T23:01:23","date_gmt":"2013-07-18T21:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=42336"},"modified":"2013-07-19T09:54:45","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T07:54:45","slug":"r100-billion-needed-for-sa-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/42336\/r100-billion-needed-for-sa-broadband\/","title":{"rendered":"R100 billion needed for SA broadband: Infraco"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broadband Infraco<\/a> CEO, Puleng\u00a0Kwele<\/a> estimates that the South African government will need to set aside as much as R100 billion in order to meet its targets for broadband coverage.<\/p>\n

The Department of Communications<\/a> has committed to delivering 100% broadband penetration along with one million jobs by 2020.<\/p>\n

Speaking at an event in Sandton on Thursday evening (18 July), Kwele said: \u201cI think there is a will (to reach the 2020 target). If money is put on the table, I think we can get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could go the India route \u2013 cheap and quick \u2013 but we don\u2019t want to do that. As a country we take ourselves seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kwele welcomed the appointment of the new minister of communications Yunus\u00a0Carrim<\/a>. \u201cWith the new minister, we will be able to move quite quickly,\u201d Kwele said optimistically.<\/p>\n

State owned enterprise (SOE), Broadband Infraco has a mission to expand the availability and affordability of access to national and international wholesale broadband connectivity.<\/p>\n

The group also has a mandate to ensure the availability of broadband connectivity and capacity requirements for specific projects of national interests are met. The group has already put just under 13,000 km of fibre into the ground.<\/p>\n

When questioned how much it would take to meet the country\u2019s broadband needs, Kwele jokingly asked how much Cell C<\/a> had just received in the latest cash boost from its investors. \u201cThat might be a good start,\u201d she said referring to an approximate allocation of R5.5 billion.<\/p>\n

Kwele said that in the five years of its existence, Broadband Infraco had only received a total of R1.8 billion from government. \u201cR1.8 billion is nothing, it\u2019s a drop in the ocean in this industry,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf government wants to be a player, it has got to be a player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kwele noted that the DoC had mentioned a figure of R70 billion regarding its needs for infrastructure development in the ICT space. She added however, that it might not be enough. \u201cGovernment needs to set aside R100 billion,” in order for us to do what we need to for broadband coverage,\u201d Kwele said.<\/p>\n

The chief executive said that with other countries in Africa surging ahead of SA in the ICT space, \u201cperhaps we will catch a wake up\u201d.<\/p>\n

On the South African government website, it has pledged to accelerate broadband-infrastructure spending.<\/p>\n

“In this regard, an initial R450 million has been allocated, over the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) period to provide broadband services,” it said.<\/p>\n

More on Broadband Infraco<\/h3>\n

CFO not suspended: Broadband Infraco<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Broadband Infraco lifts revenue by 32%<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Broadband Infraco appoints new CEO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Broadband Infraco to address cash position<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Broadband Infraco to boost Limpopo network<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C gets R3.5 billion cash boost<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Broadband Infraco says government needs to set aside as much as R100 billion in order to meet its targets for broadband coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":10926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5553,23],"tags":[1876,42,1087,26,5863],"class_list":["post-42336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadband","category-government","tag-broadband-infraco","tag-cell-c","tag-department-of-communications","tag-headline","tag-puleng-kwele"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42336","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42336"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42346,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42336\/revisions\/42346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}