Between June and December 31, the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) will hand out the new branded biometric magstripe cards to grant holders, replacing the current Sekulula cards.
The biometric cards will also replace temporary smartcards that social grant beneficiaries in Gauteng, Western Cape, the southern part of the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Free State - provinces which don't use the current service provider - have been using since March.
Read more: ZA: New biometric card to boot out social grant fraud
The Department of Communications' decision that subsidised set-top boxes – needed for digital TV migration – must have return paths will put modems in five million homes, potentially expanding the Internet's reach to over 50% of South Africans.
As a result, at least 20 million more people will be able to plug in an Internet connection, opening up opportunities for entrepreneurs to target a new market, and expansion of e-government e-services.
BWired, The City of Johannesburg and Ericsson South Africa have collaborated to form the Johannesburg Broadband Network Project (JBNP), a 1.2 Terabyte capacity foundation and the backbone established to support the realisation of the ‘Smart City’ concept.
Read more: ZA: Johannesburg shows Africa is getting smarter about connectivity
Opening the ICT Indaba Africa Conference in Cape Town yesterday, Pule said most of the new growth in data access could be attributed to the rise in the number of broadband subscribers using hand-held devices such as smartphones.
She said the number of mobile broadband subscribers grew by 31% in 2011 to reach 4.2million.
The briefing, hosted by biometric identity control specialists Ideco and Stanley Security, in partnership with ITWeb, outlined the risks of identity fraud in financial services, and the inadequacy of existing identification methods.
Ideco MD Marius Coetzee said SA was adopting biometric technology in many industry verticals, with Ideco technology being used to verify the identities of over 2.5 million employees around the country.