Cisco has added its voice to calls for mobile operators in South Africa to leverage Wi-FI infrastructure to expand their data coverage and reduce costs by US$972 million.
In the Cisco Visual Networking Index Forecast (2012-2017), the network specialist predicts infrastructure costs could be reduced by 27 per cent by such collaboration, as South Africa internet protocol (IP) traffic will quadruple between 2012 and 2017.
The report stated: “WiFi could hold the solution, transforming wireless Internet access by offering higher speeds, improved security, and more availability on almost any connected device.”
HumanIPO reported last week Mohammad Patel, deputy chairperson at the Wireless Access Providers’ Association (WAPA), had highlighted the potential of collaboration between the country’s growing number of Wi-Fi networks and the giant operators which currently have huge black spots in their LTE and 3G coverage.
Cisco’s forecast suggests South Africa’s fixed/Wi-Fi IP traffic will grow from 43 per cent in 2012 to 54 per cent in 2017 of total IP traffic.
It also forecasts mobile IP traffic will grow from 8 per cent in 2012 to 19 per cent by 2017.
In total, the country’s internet users will grow from 18 million in 2012 to 23 million in 2017.
