1 / 20

National Treasury Presentation

National Treasury Presentation. Market Sounding – Rolling out broadband infrastructure in SA WIRELESS ACCESS PROVIDERS’ ASSOCIATION . Presented by: Christopher Geerdts, WAPA Chairperson Sumaiyah Makda, WAPA Regulatory Advisor Jabulani Vilakazi , WAPA Member . ABOUT WAPA.

xuan
Download Presentation

National Treasury Presentation

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. National Treasury Presentation

  2. Market Sounding – Rolling out broadband infrastructure in SA WIRELESS ACCESS PROVIDERS’ ASSOCIATION Presented by: Christopher Geerdts, WAPA Chairperson Sumaiyah Makda, WAPA Regulatory Advisor Jabulani Vilakazi, WAPA Member

  3. ABOUT WAPA • Formed in 2006 • Non-profit organisation • Further interests of wireless access providers • Facilitates self-regulation of the outdoor fixed wireless and indoor nomadic wireless industries

  4. ABOUT WAPA • 131 members & growing fast • Majority of members: infrastructure providers • Build, expand and maintain their own wireless networks

  5. ABOUT WAPA • Average WAPA member: SMME providing extensive coverage in rural areas where there is no cost-effective alternative access means • Track record of price reduction and service innovation in the provision of broadband services in areas where larger operators will not go

  6. An example of an area serviced by a WAPA member – where incumbent operators fear to tread

  7. 2011 CENSUS • Approximately 80 000 subscribers, including broadband and voice • Free or discounted services • More than 150 hospitals and clinics • Approximately 550 schools • BBBEE Rating within Levels 1 to 4 – approximately 50% of WAPA members • Employ around 1 000 people • Collective turnover: R160 million per annum • More than 6 000 hotspots

  8. COVERAGE MAP

  9. COVERAGE MAP Coverage in rural areas

  10. WHAT DOES WAPA DO?

  11. EXTENDING WIRELESS ACCESS COVERAGE IN SOUTH AFRICA • Estimate that there may be as many as 500 SMME Wireless access providers over and above WAPA members • Huge growth in the industry, despite • Legal and regulatory constraints • Lack of access to licensed spectrum

  12. EXTENDING WIRELESS ACCESS COVERAGE IN SOUTH AFRICA • Interaction with fixed-line incumbents – agreement on how WAPA members will extend coverage into rural areas • Promotes model of community-based SMMEs covering small areas and interconnecting with each other • Achieves ubiquitous coverage • Fosters job creation, skills transfer • Deepens broadband penetration

  13. EXTENDING WIRELESS ACCESS COVERAGE IN SOUTH AFRICA • Provision of access where • There is no alternative • especially marginalised communities • Current providers have defaulted • eg after frequent copper theft • Rollout is too slow • including many urban areas • Customers simply choose alternatives • based on innovation, pricing, quality of service, customer responsiveness, or more personalised attention • So do not have to be a large incumbent to make a difference!

  14. CONSTRAINTS Growth in the industry occurring despite policy, legal and regulatory constraints • Inability to use licensed spectrum for access services • a long-standing challenge met with innovative use of licence-exempt spectrum and investment in future technologies such as tv white spaces • Lack of national wholesale networks providing bandwidth at cost-plus pricing

  15. CONSTRAINTS • Regulatory environment – makes no allowances for SMMEs and does not incentivise their operations • Weak regulator – not able to stand up to the incumbents • Difficulties in obtaining rights of way and high sites • No enforced framework for co-ordinating infrastructure builds and infrastructure sharing

  16. Incumbent operators are prickly about sharing infrastructure

  17. UNIVERSAL BROADBAND BY 2020 • WAPA members and providers who fit the WAPA profile are a key ingredient in deepening broadband access • Costing of national broadband network – should take into account existence of community-based providers • Business case for rural service provision does exist! Even in the absence of subsidies.

  18. UNIVERSAL BROADBAND BY 2020 • Licence-exempt spectrum is where innovation happens – evidenced by the WiFi explosion (billion+ devices shipped in 2011) • Bottom-up Model allowing local communities to build and operate networks which service such communities – done according to blueprint to ensure interoperability

  19. WAPA thanks the National Treasury for the invitation to address it, and offers WAPA’s support for future endeavours

  20. Christopher Geerdts chris@wapa.org.za 083 222 1463 Sumaiyah Makda sam@ellipsis.co.za 082 045 8058

More Related