Pretoria — Government will continue to advance the objective of universal service to enable ordinary people to access modern communication technology, says communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri.

Minister Matsepe-Casaburri was speaking at the National Colloquium on Convergence Policy currently underway in Johannesburg.

The convergence policy refers to the integration of Information Technology (IT), computing, broadcasting and telecommunications and has the ability to transmit content over any infrastructure and broadcast over the telecommunications and IT infrastructure.

The minister said this service would create a flourishing information society such as the Internet, tele-medicine, tele-agriculture, e-commerce and other convenience measures.

'These measures are aimed at improving the quality of life of our people while contributing to economic growth.'

Minister Matsepe-Casaburri further said that the growth of e-commerce had redefined traditional business methods.

'With over 300 million current Internet users, there are numerous opportunities for both developed and developing countries as e-commerce creates a 'friction-less' economy in which transaction costs and barriers to entry and contestability are minimal,' she said.

'E-commerce has revolutionized approaches to cross-border commercial transactions and that there is a global agenda for change that require our attention.'

'Some of our concerns should be rules on goods, services and intellectual property, classification of e-commerce cyber products, security and privacy and implications for developing countries,' she said.

The Colloquium ends in Johannesburg today.