South African network providers MTN and
The unequal footing on which grade 1 pupils in various schools in
Schools and families that are well off experienced mostly minor speed bumps and inconvenience as the pandemic forced changes in how they teach and study. But for impoverished families and schools it was a challenging time, heightened by the exorbitant data prices that made homeschooling tough and in certain households impossible.
For this reason, and many others, data prices have to keep falling to be accessible to most of the public. Some positive steps in this direction have been taken, not because of the generosity of the country's two biggest network providers but because the
Anti-poor and exploitative. These two words are important in analysing and understanding the problem in order to find a long-lasting solution that will benefit the citizens of the country hardest hit by the telecommunication giants' conduct.
The pandemic showed just how anti-poor and exploitative these prices are. With schools closed in an effort to curb the spread of Covid-19, teachers were forced to rethink how they teach. The internet replaced the classroom with learning taking place online. Those with a stable internet connection thrived while the majority of impoverished children were left behind. Children in grades R, 1, 2, 3, 6, 10 and 11 lost 32% of the time they would have spent in the classroom were it not for the lockdown. That's a huge amount in a critical stage of learning, especially in the primary phase where the foundation is being laid and in grade 11, which prepares learners for matric.
There were several measures to compensate for that time, but as education expert
Being left behind
It's not far-fetched to assume that many children were left behind because of the pandemic. For them to catch up, it will take dedicated and patient teachers to first work on the curriculum that was missed last year and then move on to the one for this year. While this is happening, those who had access to the internet will be getting further ahead, widening the distance between them and those who were left behind. It's a crisis in a country with such high levels of inequality.
In
This means more than half of the population is heavily dependent on corporate network service providers to access information, learning materials, entertainment and other valuable components of the internet. But when the price of accessing that world is exorbitant, cellphones are just a basic tool to reach people.
Applications like
Icasa's lack of bite is part of the reason the public has been ripped off for years. Before the advent of smartphones, telecommunications companies made most of their money on phone calls and the short-message service. Even then they were exploiting their customers.
The great rip-off
As far back as 2012, journalist, activist academic and now head of journalism, film and television at the
"In the initial interconnection agreement between
The same has applied since data became king. MTN and
This is a lot of money in a country where the minimum wage was increased to just R21.69 an hour in March. A quarter of the population live on less than R19 a day and about 50% live on less than R41, as revealed by the House Affordability Index compiled by the
The exploitative nature of these companies can be seen in the way they charge far more for smaller bundles than bigger ones. The majority of impoverished people buy data in small bundles because buying in bulk is simply not an option financially.
The results of a comparative Icasa study on how much
For the 1GB bundle, it had the third most expensive offering - behind
Milking the consumer
In
It's no surprise then that 30% of MTN's revenues in 2019 (R45.447 billion) came from
The pandemic has affected many spheres of our lives, profoundly changing how people communicate and work. During this period, the world has been at the mercy of telecommunication companies. Those who have lost their jobs need the internet to look for work, and students need it to study. With the closure of theatres and the virus still raging, workers in the entertainment industry have taken their craft online - from virtual shows to theatre pieces on
The introduction of zero-rated educational portals is a good step, but more needs to be done to ensure the internet is truly accessible. The companies holding all the cards will not do it out of goodwill. We need a strong regulator that will not only stop this exploitation but also severely punish companies that are guilty of it.
Being ordered to do the right thing or given a slap on the wrist is not enough, nor does it benefit the people who have been exploited for years. Holding these companies accountable will go a long way in the fight against inequality.
Copyright New Frame. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com)., source