Advancing rural connectivity in South Africa

This policy brief makes a case for how a community networks model may be harnessed to address the rural digital divide. Community networks enable historically disadvantaged communities, many of which are in rural areas, to obtain the technical and related skills, including support, to install, manage and operate their own electronic communications services and infrastructure. Of all the available options, bottom-up locally developed communications infrastructure and alternative local access infrastructure models like Community networks are proving to be particularly effective in realising the goal of universal and affordable access to ICTs.