SA nearing 1 Million broadband connections

South Africa is closing in on the one million broadband connection mark, mainly due to fast wireless broadband growth.

Telkom’s ADSL service is still the leading broadband service in South Africa with around 400 000 subscribers.

Vodacom’s 3G/HSDPA service is fast catching up to ADSL with 350 000 subscribers, and with a strong focus on broadband from Vodacom’s new Vodacom Business division 2008 may be the year where Vodacom surpasses Telkom in broadband subscribers.

MTN’s has not released any 3G/HSDPA subscriber numbers recently, but it is estimated that the mobile provider has around 70 000 subscribers.

iBurst continues to show good growth with 60 000 subscribers while Sentech has only a few thousand MyWireless subscribers left.

Wireless Internet Service Providers (WISPs) – typically using WiFi as a last mile access technology - account for 45 000 broadband subscribers.

This brings the total number of broadband connections in South Africa to 930 000. It is expected that the 1 Million broadband subscriber mark will be reached before the middle of 2008.

Source: mybroadband.co.za