Govt pledges digital support to education and communication
Telecommunications and Digital Technologies Minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams on March 25 assured that government and the private sector were working together to ensure that telecommunications networks were not hampered from providing communications services during South Africa’s Covid-19 lockdown period.
With a significant increase in the number of people working from home and a hike in real-time information dissemination, particularly as the country settles in for a 21-day nationwide lockdown, it is critical to keep communication channels operating and seamless.
“One envisages a situation where there will be too much traffic on the network. As government and the department [of Telecommunications and Digital Technologies], it is important to provide the capability to those that are providing the network,” she said during a press briefing.
In line with this, the department assured bandwidth would be increased and that the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa pledged spectrum relief for operators by releasing the required spectrum temporarily and in accordance with the law, with the infrastructure deployed track and the spectrum to be returned, if possible, once the restrictions were eased.
She also said that service providers had agreed to zero-rate education, government and nongovernmental organisations' websites, and provide data analytics services that would assist government during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Any price hikes during this period has also been prohibited.
“It is high time to work together to minimize the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic,” she told media, as various Ministers outline the efforts of the various departments to stick to the measures announced by President Cyril Ramaphosa to slow the spread of the virus in South Africa.
Further, with the disruption of the education sector, and the need to mitigate the impact, the department, in partnership with the Department of Basic Education, is working to provide broadcast and virtual classrooms, with one South African Broadcasting Corporation channel to be dedicated to education.
Online resources have been compiled to support learning at home during the lockdown.
Comments
Press Office
Announcements
What's On
Subscribe to improve your user experience...
Option 1 (equivalent of R125 a month):
Receive a weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine
(print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
Receive daily email newsletters
Access to full search results
Access archive of magazine back copies
Access to Projects in Progress
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
Option 2 (equivalent of R375 a month):
All benefits from Option 1
PLUS
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports, in PDF format, on various industrial and mining sectors
including Electricity; Water; Energy Transition; Hydrogen; Roads, Rail and Ports; Coal; Gold; Platinum; Battery Metals; etc.
Already a subscriber?
Forgotten your password?
Receive weekly copy of Creamer Media's Engineering News & Mining Weekly magazine (print copy for those in South Africa and e-magazine for those outside of South Africa)
➕
Recieve daily email newsletters
➕
Access to full search results
➕
Access archive of magazine back copies
➕
Access to Projects in Progress
➕
Access to ONE Research Report of your choice in PDF format
RESEARCH CHANNEL AFRICA
R4500 (equivalent of R375 a month)
SUBSCRIBEAll benefits from Option 1
➕
Access to Creamer Media's Research Channel Africa for ALL Research Reports on various industrial and mining sectors, in PDF format, including on:
Electricity
➕
Water
➕
Energy Transition
➕
Hydrogen
➕
Roads, Rail and Ports
➕
Coal
➕
Gold
➕
Platinum
➕
Battery Metals
➕
etc.
Receive all benefits from Option 1 or Option 2 delivered to numerous people at your company
➕
Multiple User names and Passwords for simultaneous log-ins
➕
Intranet integration access to all in your organisation