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Survey finds SA dial-up market 50% bigger than expected

from ISPA

The Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) has funded, in part, and endorsed the latest Media Africa (MA) survey of the SA Internet industry. "As a result, this will probably be the most accurate survey of the South African ISP market yet," says ISPA spokesman, Anthony Brooks.

The 1997 Internet Services Industry survey found that the dial-up market was substantially larger than first imagined - at least 50% larger.

"This confirms that SA dial-up ISPs are likely to keep growing at an impressive rate," says MA's Cathy Stadler.

MA has produced a number of Internet surveys which have proved popular in the IT industry, and have been extensively quoted in the local and international press. With ISPA's co-operation, support and endorsement, the latest report should represent the most comprehensive survey of the ISP market available in SA.

"The endorsement is the most important thing for us," says Stadler. "It means we have the industry's support for our work." The report covers diverse aspects of the Internet market, includes ISP rankings and trends of the last six months.

The ISPA actively supports efforts to inform businesses and end-users about the Internet industry in South Africa. The organization also funds the ISP map built by Greg Massel, and is collaborating on an IT career guide for young people considering a career in the Internet industry.

The Media Africa report will be available in the first two weeks of August. Those wishing to obtain a copy should contact Media Africa (Arthur Goldstuck on 886-7976 or Cathy Stadler on 442-6929) or email sales@mafrica.co.za.

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[The Scout Report -- July 17, 1998]

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The following information was contributed by Lauren Eve Pomerantz, Programs Coordinator, California Space & Science Center

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The Internet and Competition

(Taken from NETFUTURE Technology and Human Responsibility, Issue #75 )

One wonders how long certain misbegotten platitudes regarding the Internet will retain their status as conventional wisdom. One of these has to do with how the Net fundamentally alters competitive relations. As a PR Newswire headline recently put it:

Internet, the Great Equalizer, Levels the Playing Field for U.S. Small Businesses.

John Graham, president of a marketing services and consulting firm, elaborates:

The Internet has leveled every playing field. Because of the Internet, every individual has the potential for becoming a publisher, operating a business or communicating worldwide. This staggering concept is only beginning to penetrate our understanding....Today, anyone can interact or do business with anyone, anywhere. The Internet gives both individuals and companies unlimited opportunities to do business universally. (*Houston Business Journal*, May 4, 1998)

There is a major confusion here. The Internet may be encouraging a globalization of business, but this is not the same thing as leveling the playing field. The telephone and postal systems already gave everyone "equal access" to global markets, but such technical and theoretical access tells us little about the commercial, social, historical, legal, political, and cultural matrix the entrepreneur must negotiate in order to achieve success.

This fact was recently underscored when three online brokerage houses -- DLJDirect, E*Trade Securities, and Waterhouse Securities -- agreed to pay America Online $25 million each for links in the AOL financial services area. According to J. William Gurley in a recent "Above the Crowd Dispatch", the deal (which is good for two years) has "profoundly shaken" many Internet retailers. As they are now discovering,

It's sad but unquestionably true that the physical distribution network of yesterday has been replaced by a new virtual distribution system that is as expensive and difficult to navigate as its predecessor. Opening a commerce-enabled Web site without a portal partner is similar to opening a retail store in the desert. Sure, it's cheap, but does anybody stop there?

One wonders how all those shaken retailers thought that thousands of online businesses were simultaneously going to connect with the new, "universal" marketplace. Does putting the telephone book's yellow pages online magically enable the consumer to avoid the selection process and attend to all businesses in the world at once?

The fallacy here also shows itself in the belief that "the Net gives political organizations and activist groups a powerful advantage". Advantage over whom -- the thousands of other groups on the Net who also have an advantage? Unsurprisingly, this sort of claim has arisen most insistently among the pioneering online organizations in each field. The few early adopters of technology *may* have an advantage over their unconnected peers; in the end, however, they're all just playing the same game, except that the pressure for fast reaction, novelty, and ceaseless technical upgrading is now raised several notches.

You could call the fallacy at work in all this the "formalist's fallacy". One thing the Net does do is to extend the range of formal connection possibilities. But our ability to capitalize on formal possibility is limited by our powers of attention, and it is not at all clear that the individual human being today can attend to more people or discussions or political issues or news than he could yesterday. We can, as always, trade depth of attention for a more superficial breadth -- something the Net seems to encourage. And we can let software select what we will attend to. But as for our powers of attention themselves, there is every evidence that the electronic media are doing more to distract and diminish them than to strengthen them.

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AFRICAN                SYMPOSIUM           AFRICAN
WINDOW                                                    WINDOW

IN COLLABORATION WITH FEST SCIENCE MUSEUM


                * MATTER OVER MIND *

                 "ARE WE WALKING COMPUTERS?"
A MIND FORMATTING SYMPOSIUM FOR PEOPLE WHO USE THEIR BRAINS!

THEME:        The development of the Human Brain and
                        computers - what are the similarities and
                        differences?
DATE:            Tuesday, 18 August 1998
TIME:             18:00 for 18:30
PRESENTERS     Key-note speaker: Dr. Bob Day, co-ordinator of
                             the information and Communications
                             Technologies Sector of the National Research
                             and Technology Foresight Project
                             Other speakers: Dr. Manie Nieman a medical doctor and
                             Hendrich Redelinghuys a theologian and
                             pastoral consultant

PROGRAMME:
18:30 -19:00:  "Brain, mind, computer - one thing or
                        many?: key-note address by Dr. Bob Day

19:00 - 19:30:  "A Computerlike Brain or a Brainlike
                Computer? a Matter of Social Construction"
                presented by Dr Manie Nieman together with
                Hendrich Redelinghuys

19:30           Discussion
                Sherry and snacks

FEES:           R10 per person
BOOKINGS:       Computicket or contact Marileen/Mimi at
                African Window: tel. 324.6082, fax. 328.5173

PARKING:        Ample free secure parking available on the premises.
               
AFRICAN WINDOW is in Visagie Street (one way East to West) West of
the Transvaal Museum and the Pretoria City Hall.