A public-private partnership (PPP) is the only way for the South African government to meet its target of 100 per cent broadband penetration by 2020, according to Alpheus Mangale, Managing Director of Cisco South Africa.
Mangale told Cisco Expo South Africa 2013 the company was committed to assisting the government with increasing the speed of ICT adoption.
HumanIPO reported last week Arthur Goldstuck, founder of business technology research site World Wide Worx, had said the South African government was only paying “lip service” to the 2020 100 per cent broadband penetration target and would miss it badly.
Goldstuck added the government was wholly reliant on the private sector for its broadband rollout.
“All efforts towards that target are coming from private enterprises at the moment,” he said. “The government is paying lip service towards broadband, but there is nothing in place to achieve it.”
Mangale said the government should embrace the private sector and enter into a PPP to make it easy for telecoms to invest in networks in rural areas, with the telecoms running these networks.
“Government does not have the skills to run a network,” said Mangale, saying the government’s challenge would be to persuade telecoms to invests in non-profitable rural networks.
