History of Telecommunications in South Africa
The first use of telecommunication in the Republic of South Africa was a single line telegraph connecting Cape Town and Simonstown. After Bell Labs' development of the telephone, the first undersea links were introduced, first connecting Durban and Europe, and soon after, the rest of the world. The network continued to develop through internal financing in a heavily regulated market as international technology developed. At this point, telephone services were operated by the South African Post Office.
In the 1960s, South Africa was connected to 72 nations and total outgoing annual international calls numbered over 28,800.
In the 1990s, South Africa launched its mobile operations, underwritten by Telkom in partnership with Vodafone. This subsidiary grew to be Vodacom, which Telkom sold in late 2008 in preference for its own 3G network. Vodacom has a subscriber base of more than R45M, with an average revenue per user of more than R60 across both rural and urban subscribers. Vodacom, together with the other operators, have come under criticism in late 2009 by government and the public for high interconnect charges. This issue is currently being discussed by the Parliamentary Committee on Telecommunications.
In 2004, the Department of Communications redefined the Electronics Communications Act, which consilidated and redefined the landscape of telecommunications licensing in South Africa (both mobile and fixed). The Independent Communications Authority (ICASA) currently licenses more than 400 independent operators with the Electronic Communications Network License (with the ability to self-provision) as well as issuing Electronic Communications Service Licenses for service deployment over infrastructure in the retail domain.
Telkom is no longer the single operator in South Africa, and faces competition from the second Fixed Network Operator Licensee, Neotel, as well as the three mobile operators, Vodacom, MTN and Cell-C. However, it still receives criticisms (see later) from smaller operators and the Competition Commission for setting South African broadband pricing in its favour.
Read more about this topic: Telkom (South Africa)
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