Yesterday’sWitnessreport on residents of Impendle celebrating improved digital access is a reminder of how uneven South Africa’s connectivity landscape remains. For years, people in the area described owning mobile phones that were effectively useless, with poor signal cutting them off from jobs, education, emergency services and basic communication. As one resident put it, connectivity had become “a lifeline”, not a convenience.
That a community not far from Pietermaritzburg could remain digitally isolated for so long should trouble us. Urban residents often take connectivity for granted. For them, data access is a right rather than a privilege.
Yet for millions of South Africans, access to the digital world remains out of reach. National data bears this out. While South Africa has high mobile phone ownership, around one in five people — more than 13 million citizens — still do not have meaningful access to the internet.
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In rural areas, coverage may exist on paper, but weak signal, limited bandwidth and high data costs make access unreliable. Connectivity, in practice, remains uneven and deeply unequal. This matters because digital access is no longer optional.
It is central to access to education, healthcare information, government services, economic opportunity and freedom of expression. Increasingly, participation in our democracy depends on being connected. When communities are excluded digitally, inequality is reinforced rather than reduced.
South Africa’s telecom operators hold valuable licences that come with obligations. These include investing in infrastructure, extending coverage and ensuring sufficient capacity The Impendle story shows what is possible when infrastructure is finally put in place. But it also highlights how long many communities have been left behind.
Parliament and the oversight committee tasked with regulatory monitoring should report frequently on access levels and quality of services. Communities need to know when these services will reach their homes. Bridging the digital divide is not simply about technology but a measure of how seriously we take inequality in South Africa.
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