Now that Eskom has written off its investment in the proposed second network operator, adding yet another vote of no confidence in government's plan to create a second Telkom, a more realistic telecom policy should be on the horizon.
A vibrant market of hundreds of smaller players offering "last mile" services is more attractive than the proposed duopoly of national carriers.
Local authorities are joining the private sector in lobbying for an open telecom market, so the list of technologies and potential competitors is growing. Below the FM examines the leading contenders for your connection to the Web.
Power lines
The Tshwane metropolitan council is running a pilot project that provides a unique form of Internet access. Though allowing electronic signals to ride on the back of the 220 V fed to wall plugs is as old as domestic electricity supply, making the existing power grid a branch of the Internet is revolutionary.
Past efforts ran into a number of snags. Data was wiped out by the many transformers along the line. Turning a kettle on or off made gibberish of digital data.
Incumbent Internet service providers (ISPs) claim this is still the case, but Tshwane metro managing engineer Charles Kuun says tests have shown that the available power-line communication equipment can overcome technical glitches.
However, existing laws do not take the new technology into account, so it is impossible for the Tshwane metro - and others - to enter the market and prove that these problems can be overcome.
Wireless
The communications department has shown its favouritism in its handling of wireless technology. Broadcasting parastatal Sentech has government's permission to offer its MyWireless Internet access product. But Sentech's private-sector counterpart, Orbicom, and others are not allowed to offer anything similar.
Government efforts to protect Sentech by refusing its competitors the required "carrier of carriers" licences is unlikely to persuade Sentech to improve its customer service. But advances in technology mean Sentech is already competing with the cellphone networks.
GPRS
The cellphone networks' high tariffs and slow data-transmission speeds turned wireless application protocol (Wap) into the biggest nonevent since Y2K.
But Wap may yet live up to its hype, thanks to a data-transmission method supported by GSM networks called general packet radio service (GPRS). The technology makes it possible for network operators to charge for the amount of data transmitted, rather than the time spent online. And it offers continuous Internet connection.
If GPRS takes off anywhere, it will be in SA. According to the International Telecommunication Union's statistics, cellphone data transmission using short message service (SMS) is used more in SA than anywhere else. South Africans send an average of 17 SMSs/month, far more than the global average of four/month.
In countries where digital leased lines are cheap, GPRS's typical speed of 20 KB/s or 30 KB/s is too slow. But in SA, with the vacuum created by Telkom's expensive, unreliable and poorly marketed Diginet lines, GPRS has strong prospects.
ADSL
Competition from cable TV networks in the Internet-access market forced the US "baby-Bells" to show the market what a plain old telephone service (Pots) can achieve.
Asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL) run on the same wires as a standard phone service, offering many of the advantages of a leased line, but at a cheaper price.
Telkom initially resisted ADSL, presumably because it viewed the service as a threat to its investment in ISDN infrastructure. Now that it is available, it is the best access option for most Internet users. A big advantage of ADSL is that there is no extra charge for time spent online. Telkom charges businesses R800/month for its ADSL service and home users R680/month. Many businesses will find the flat-rate price cheaper than the cost of dialling their ISPs to send and receive e-mails or surf the Internet.
Telkom has, however, made its ADSL service a poor choice for website hosting. The service's upload speed is set at half the download speed. If Telkom has done this to protect its Diginet business, the phone utility is wasting its time. The inevitable outcome of the present pricing structure is that co.za websites will migrate to the US's competitive server farms.
Satellite
TV satellite dishes can be used to receive Internet data, but they are not able to send it. The satellite services of dial-up ISPs can speed up downloads, but sending e-mails and requests for websites requires a separate access method - usually dial-up, which translates into paying Telkom by the second for time spent online.
But larger satellite dishes, or very small aperture terminals (Vsats), are capable of two-way communication. According to UUNet, 60% of ISPs in Africa use Vsat links as part of their networks.
Leased lines
In SA, leased line is a synonym for Telkom Diginet. Its confusing cost structure, which depends on distance and how the line will be used, makes it hard for businesses to calculate whether it is a better deal than ADSL.
Ultimately, leased lines are what the Internet is about. Telkom's monopoly creates a bottleneck, which the frustrated market is trying to circumvent. But opening the leased-line market to competition would be a cheaper and more effective way to address Africa's digital divide.
