Interview: Telecoms policy expert Steve Song

Loading player...
In this episode of the podcast, TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod has a wide-ranging discussion via the Internet with Steve Song, the Canadian-born telecommunications policy and regulatory expert who has extensive experience in and knowledge of ICT issues in Africa.
Song, who founded Village Telco – which builds low-cost mesh networking technologies for use in underserviced areas – and who developed the highly referenced African Undersea Cables map, talks in detail about how South Africa can bridge the digital divide through the right policies and regulations dealing with everything from spectrum to a concept called “universal basic Internet”.
He provides his views on government’s plan to create a wholesale open-access network – explaining why it’s necessary to proceed with caution on the Woan – and why he believes it’s time to offer a basic level of Internet (up to 64kbit/s) for free to South African consumers.
In the podcast, Song talks about television white-spaces spectrum, the proliferation of subsea telecoms cables serving Africa (and why he needs to find a new way of displaying them on his map), and why openness and transparency in telecoms is important to the industry’s development.
The discussion then turns to the complex subject of network neutrality, which Song supports in broad terms. How should net neutrality apply in the South African context and what should policy makers and regulators be doing in this regard.
It’s a fantastic podcast about a broad range of issues affecting the ICT sector. You do not want to miss it!
29 May 2018 English South Africa Technology · Business

Other recent episodes

Nexus S0E1 (beta): Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

This is the first (and beta) episode of a new podcast series curated by TechCentral's editorial team and generated by artificial intelligence tools. It's an experiment for now, but if it works well, we'll make it a regular feature. Note that even using the most accurate and reliable sources (human-generated…
8 Jun 59 min

TCS | Nomvuyiso Batyi on Starlink, BEE reform and spectrum

What should one make of the noise surrounding the licensing (or non-licensing) of Starlink in South Africa? And what of the plans to reform the rules around black economic empowerment in the sector? To make sense of these developments – and others – TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod sat down this…
6 Jun 50 min

TCS | The future of mobile money, with MTN’s Kagiso Mothibi

Mobile money has an increasingly vital role to play in South Africa’s economy, despite the fact that the country boasts an advanced financial services sector. That’s the view of Kagiso Mothibi, CEO of Fintech at MTN South Africa, who was sharing his views in a recent interview with TechCentral’s TCS+…
6 Jun 38 min

TCS+ | AI is more than hype: Workday execs unpack real human impact

Forget the hype, embrace the revolution! In this episode of TCS+, TechCentral speaks with Workday South Africa country manager Kiv Moodley and manager of solutions consulting Jannie Malan to dissect the critical intersection of artificial intelligence and human potential. Malan oversees the solution consulting team, engaging with prospects and clients…
4 Jun 41 min

TCS | Sentiv, and the story behind the buyout of Altron Nexus

Altron Group announced last week that it was selling its Altron Nexus business in a management buyout led by Nexus MD Louis du Toit and BriteGaze founder and technology entrepreneur Reshaad Sha. Sha and Du Toit are our guests in this episode of the TechCentral Show, where they tell TechCentral…
3 Jun 23 min