Internet connectivity speeds in SA 'faster than it has ever been'

Lester Kiewit speaks to Paul Colmer, Executive Committee Member at the Wireless Access Providers Association.

The Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) recently released its State of ICT report (Information and Communications Technology) which compiled internet speed test data from speed testing site OOKLA over the last five years.

The speed test data showed sharp increases in the internet speeds of fixed and mobile broadband over the period.

OOKLA captured median internet speeds based on the speed tests conducted through the site.

Colmer says "over 70% of internet complaints are about low internet speeds." 

But OOKLA's report shows that internet connectivity speeds in South Africa are "faster than it's ever been".

Slow internet might not always equal slow internet speeds. It can be due to dead WiFi zones in your home but it's rarely because of internet speed, says Colmer. 

"Over 70% of service calls coming in are people complaining about low speeds but they have nothing to do with the incoming line but the inability to spread decent Wi-Fi around the home which is actually dragging it down. Some homes have complete dead spots, Wi-Fi doesn't like going though reinforced concrete walls, there's a lot of things that slow it down so a lot of the problems lie within that and not the connective line itself."

- Paul Colmer, Executive Committee Member - Wireless Access Providers Association

Does the average South African household need a large bandwidth if all you're doing is streaming and gaming? 

Colmer says many households don't need more than a 25 megabytes per second line.

"You take a 100 megabyte line for example, you only need four or five megabytes to stream movies in HD. In extreme cases, if you were streaming 4k content, you could have four simultaneous 4k streams running on a 100 megabyte line - but that's highly unlikely in an average household."

- Paul Colmer, Executive Committee Member - Wireless Access Providers Association

Some fibre providers are offering one to 10 gigs for homes, which Colmer says is unnecessary.

"So people who have one gigabyte lines, I think a lot of it has to do with bragging rights more than any practical use for it. There is no way you can utilise all that."

- Paul Colmer, Executive Committee Member - Wireless Access Providers Association

If your internet cuts out or is slow, it might now always be because you need more internet speed.

"If you want to do anything with content or communication with the United States, the transmission has to go across the Atlantic and one of the undersea fibre cables and that latency on that cable alone just by pure distance is 150 milliseconds to add on to your extremely fast service so that is in effect what's slowing it down, not the speed of the line."

- Paul Colmer, Executive Committee Member - Wireless Access Providers Association

Scroll up to the audio player to listen to the full conversation.