Johannesburg — VARIOUS organisations that depend on the internet for their communications are compiling a strategy for boosting SA's bandwidth that they hope the new communications minister will adopt.

Although no firm contender has emerged to replace Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri as minister after the elections, the industry is optimistic that the newcomer will have a more liberal attitude to telecoms legislation. To encourage that, they are compiling a national broadband strategy suggesting ways of giving all South Africans affordable high-speed internet access.

Affordable broadband has the potential to drive socioeconomic, cultural and educational development, according to the draft strategy.

The meeting was hosted by groups including the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and the Shuttleworth Foundation.

"Previous telecoms regulations and policies have been incoherent," Willie Currie of the APC said. "We are concerned that unless the government develops a strategy on how to deal with broadband it's going to be chaotic. The new government needs to create a vision of how to achieve the goal of every South African having high-speed access to the internet."

The strategy document would be published for endorsement by companies and individuals and the new communications minister would be handed a copy.

Currie said people being touted as the new minister included Deputy Communications Minister Roy Padayachie, Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan or others who may be rewarded for their political allegiance.

The strategy will call for a commitment to building more fibre and wireless infrastructure, forcing operators to share their facilities, allocating spectrum quickly and cheaply, and encouraging local governments to build municipal networks and sell excess capacity to the public.

Another policy is that every school and university student should have high-speed connectivity.

SA's broadband penetration lags behind countries with a similar level of development including the Czech Republic, Poland and Turkey. SA has slipped backwards in a ranking of countries by their levels of technology, and internet penetration is growing at a much slower rate than in other African countries.

The Internet Service Providers' Association (Ispa) said those facts should prompt the government to accelerate telecoms deregulation since the dismal growth rate was an indictment of its failed policies. "Growth has stagnated over the past five years thanks to a lack of meaningful competition in the market," Ispa manager William Stucke said.

In 2000, SA's 2,4-million internet subscribers represented 53% of Africa's internet users. Today, SA accounts for only 9% of Africa's internet subscribers with 5,1-million users.

The government had damaged the sector by stubbornly insisting on retaining ownership in the major telecoms networks. That stance had limited competition, resulting in high costs to consumers and businesses and denying access to affordable services, Stucke said.

Research published by World Wide Worx yesterday predicts that SA's internet users will grow as rapidly in the next five years as they have in the past 15 years, to reach 9-million by 2014. MD Arthur Goldstuck said the Seacom cable due to link SA to India and Europe in June would increase SA's international bandwidth fivefold, encouraging more service providers to launch, and allowing small enterprises to afford high-speed access.