The South African government says it is committed to reducing the cost of data and a study on the competitiveness of the broadband market will be finalised this year.
Ministers in the Information Communication and Technology cluster, who briefed the media on a variety of issues here Friday, said the government spent 40 million Rand (about 3.0 million US dollars) on providing free Wi-Fi services at municipalities in the country last year.
Parliament has held public hearings and telecommunications industry regulator the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) is due to complete a study this year.
They are supposed to finalise the study this year because we are also concerned about this relative high cost of data and we hope that through that we would be able, the regulator, we asked them to come with specific recommendations on the interventions, said Telecommunications Minister Siyabonga Cwele.
Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson, who gave an update on the nuclear build programme, said: To date, 22 companies have an interest in the programme. The next phase would be to collate the information because it was a request for information (RFI) and once we have that information we’ll take it to Cabinet.”
Tourism Minister Derek Hanekom said the industry was booming and figures for November 2016 showed that 76,000 more visitors came to the country compared with the same month the previous year.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK