Internet in South Africa
The African National Congress, South Africa's governing political party, registered its website, anc.org.za in 1997 and later changed it to anc1912.org.za, making it one of the first African political organizations to establish an Internet presence; around the same time, the Freedom Front Plus (Afrikaans: Vryheidsfront Plus)[8] registered vryheidsfront.co.za.
[16] South Africa's total international bandwidth reached the 10 Gbit/s mark during 2008, and its continued increase is being driven primarily by the uptake of broadband and lowering of tariffs.
Utilising ISDN, WAN Africa Data Holdings[21] (later dissolved into the Converge Group) introduced (at the time), many revolutionary solutions like fax, Unified Messaging (email, fax, voicemail), Remote Access Service (RAS), and Voice over IP.
[23][24] ADSL prices in South Africa have been decreasing steadily since the service was introduced, mainly as a result of competition from mobile network operators, but also due to the landing of the SEACOM cable.
[28] Since then, thanks to more ISPs entering the market, the price for data has decreased – in February 2014, Webafrica started offering ADSL from R1.50 ($0.1) per GB.
Many hotspots offer usage free of charge, though frequently only after registration and/or for a limited amount of time or data.
[citation needed] Until 1 February 2005, the usage of VoIP outside of company networks was illegal under South African communications law, ostensibly to protect jobs.
MTN Group Limited, formerly M-Cell,[51] is a South African telecommunications company, based in Johannesburg.
Founded in South Africa, Vodacom has grown its operations to include networks in 32 other African countries.
They offer 2G,3G,4G and LTE services[59] After recently going bankrupt,[60] Cell C has decided to merge all their customers with both MTN and Vodacom.
They provide broadband services to over 3 million households and having laid over 147,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables in South Africa.
They are majority owned by Remgro and provide Fibre to the Home(FTTH) services in South Africa.
They provide fibre connectivity to over 100,000 homes and businesses across South Africa, with a strong presence in Cape Town.
[71][72][69] MetroFibre is a carrier class Ethernet (CE 3.0) infrastructure company, that today provides highly managed fibre optic broadband connectivity in South Africa.
The following systems have been proposed or are under construction, but are not yet operational in South Africa: The South African government passed the Electronic Communications Act in 2006 and is dramatically restructuring the sector towards a converged framework, converting vertically integrated licenses previously granted to public switched telephone network (PSTN), mobile, underserved area licenses (USAL), PTN and value-added network service (VANS) operators into new Electronic Communications Network Services (ECNS), Electronic Communications Services (ECS), or broadcasting licenses.
[citation needed] The South African market is in the process of being dramatically restructured, moving away from old-style, vertically integrated segments under the 1996 Telecommunications Act and 2001 Telecommunications Amendment Act towards horizontal service layers, and the new-style licensing regime is being converted to accommodate this.
[citation needed] The South African market is split into two main tiers: top-tier Internet access providers; and downstream retail ISPs.
[citation needed] Following the deregulation of the VANS industry in South Africa, a number of leading operators have diversified from being a top-tier ISP to becoming a converged communications service provider offering a range of voice and data services, particularly VoIP, through the conversion of VANS licenses into ECS licenses.
[citation needed] With delays to local loop unbundling (LLU), which would give ISPs access to exchanges, operators are deploying a range of broadband wireless networks.
Telkom, Sentech, Neotel, WBS and the under-serviced areas licensees (USALs) have currently been given commercial WiMAX licenses.
Another 10 operators, including M-Web and Vodacom, were granted temporary test licenses and are awaiting spectrum to be allocated by ICASA.
The SANReN enables the participation of South African scientists and postgraduate students in global research, such as the high energy physics ATLAS experiment hosted at CERN in Geneva, and will enable global access to the Square Kilometre Array radio astronomy project co-hosted in South Africa and Australia.
[93] In 2006, the government of South Africa began prohibiting sites hosted in the country from displaying X18 (explicitly sexual) and XXX content (including child pornography and depictions of violent sexual acts); site owners who refuse to comply are punishable under the Film and Publications Act.
[citation needed] Under the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act of 2002 (ECTA), ISPs are required to respond to and implement take-down notices regarding illegal content such as child pornography, defamatory material, and copyright violations.
Members of the Internet Service Providers Association are not liable for third-party content they do not create or select, however, they can lose this protection from liability if they do not respond to take-down requests.
The East African Community (consisting of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC; consisting of Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) have both enacted plans to standardise cybercrime laws throughout their regions.
