The politics of telecommunications reform in South Africa

This article reviews the international trend towards liberalization of telecommunications, and then describes the history and present structure of the sector in South Africa, which shows both First World and Third World features as a result of the apartheid system. Like many other countries, South Africa has in recent years taken steps to dismantle the old parastatal telecommunications monopoly, and has embraced commercial principles, but has stopped short of privatizing telecommunications, largely because of the opposition of the African National Congress. The author argues that there are good reasons to resist the call for privatization since in South Africa the overriding priority must be to extend basic telephone service to the African majority, and this probably cannot be achieved by relying on market forces.