I think the provision of Internet in an underserviced community can only benefit its members, think of the thousands of school kids leaving school never even experiancing the wonders of the information age! The clinics could have access to new treatments and medical procedures, etc.

Ultimately things would actually work out better for all if Telkom simply lowered their prices. I don’t know if they’re familiar with the phenomenon known as the economy of scales…

lower the price of connectivity, stop charging us for analog lines we aren’t using (with data connectivity) and more people will purchase lines, meaning more money for Telkom – win win situation for everyone.

Of course Sentech really just creates some competition, but I still don’t think its enough (look at Telkom’s internet – they are still charging the same prices per GB as they were two years ago – when all the competition is charging drastically reduced rates). More business to the companies that actually provide the lower cost service!

Btw, the social vs commercial trade-off is a sign on short-termism, because the 60% or so of youth growing up in rural & peri-urban areas is a future market despite their current poverty. So biz orgs would do well to nature that market & encourage across-the-board growth in per capita income (and therefore desire/ability to consume).

I think we need more investment into fibre, and getting cheaper faster Internet connections into the social-economic powerhouse area’s rather than the rural area’s – the whole point of course being that with the increased speeds and cheaper costing, there will be new businesses and more money made as a result. Imagine if we could make use of the host of foreign streaming services – or locally produced “spin-offs”. It takes spending money to make money – (and hopefully this isn’t offensive) but you kind of need the Internet in area’s that have a higher disposable income in order to ensure that more money is spent online – its a bit of a vicious cycle I guess.

The sad reality is that while I don’t doubt that rural area’s can do with the Internet, when one looks a the problems already existing in them (electricity, water, sanitation) surely the Internet is not a priority?

My advice to Icasa would be to exchange the sprectrum allocation Sentech has (2.5+) for the so-called ‘digital dividend’ spectrum that’s apparently suitable for sparsely-populated rural areas.