Johannesburg — THE number of South African internet users has passed the 5-million mark for the first time, finally breaking through the 10% barrier for internet penetration for the country, according to internet expert Arthur Goldstuck of World Wide Worx.

Growth in the number of internet users in SA was relatively stagnant from 2002 to 2007, when it stayed below 7% penetration, but 2008 saw the rate double and last year saw a 15% growth on top of that, according to a study, Internet Access in South Africa 2010, by World Wide Worx that was sponsored by Cisco.

Goldstuck, who believed the growth would continue this year, said the study showed that growth over the past two years was the result of a number of factors, the most significant being the granting of Electronic Communication Network Service licences to more than 400 organisations.

"This meant service providers that were previously required to buy their network access from one of the major providers, could now build their own networks or choose where they wanted to buy their access," he said.

"The result was that a market previously characterised by a limited range of service providers and services suddenly exploded as small providers were able to repackage the services provided by the large telecommunications corporations in any way they wished."

Goldstuck said a second factor was the continued uptake of broadband connectivity by small and medium enterprises migrating from dial-up connectivity.

"Each company moving from dial-up to ADSL, for example, extended internet access to general office staff.

"The process was found to add an additional one to 20 new users to the internet user base for every small business using ADSL," Goldstuck said.

He also credited the landing of a new undersea cable on the South African coast as a factor, and said the laying of new undersea cables, to be in place next year, was expected to enhance competitiveness even further.

"In the coming year, operators will begin to leverage the combination of new undersea cable capacity and new fibre-optic networks to supply corporate clients and resellers with bigger, faster and more flexible capacity."

Goldstuck predicted this year would see a proliferation of high- speed connectivity materialising more widely than ever before.

The report's key findings were released yesterday and the final report will be released in March.