The Great Migration is about to begin. For many South Africans the Easter long weekend means a journey back to eMakhaya (home villages). It’s a time for family gatherings, traditional rituals, attending church services or simply slowing down.
But as we pack a modern dilemma lingers: will we stay connected when we get there? For millions in South Africa’s cities connectivity is a utility, as essential as running water. We stream, bank and scroll without a second thought. It’s the new oxygen that sustains us in the digital world.
But as the country’s highways swell with traffic heading north and east we drive straight into the reality of South Africa’s two-tiered digital landscape. This is not about posting a picturesque sunset. It’s about maintaining the threads of our modern urban lives while in the village.
Can the small business owner process payments? Can the freelancer meet a deadline from the veranda? Can the student submit an assignment due after the Easter holiday? And, more urgently, in a country where connectivity is often the backbone of safety, can we call for help in a medical emergency on a rural road?
For too many the answer is a frustrating “maybe”. While South Africa has made strides in rolling out broadband, the reality in many rural villages remains weak signal, dead zones and high data costs that feel punitive. That tower on the horizon might belong to a different network.
The “unlimited” data that works flawlessly in Sandton and Zimbali stutters while trying to load a WhatsApp message in the mountainous villages of the Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga and Limpopo.
South Africa needs R142bn to connect all homes to 100 Mbps broadband by 2035, according to a recent Development Bank of Southern Africa and National Planning Commission study. But those funds simply aren’t there. So for now we revert to pre-3G rituals. We buy R5 airtime at the spaza shop. We memorise USSD codes. We play the network lottery — phones at specific angles, walking to the nearest hilltop for a single bar of signal.
It’s digital awkwardness that has become part of the rural holiday experience. But the deeper issue is opportunity cost. Easter is an economic peak. Tourism spikes and informal economies in rural areas should be booming. Yet patchy connectivity stifles the very entrepreneurship that sustains these communities.
A grandmother running a tuck shop can’t accept a tap-and-go payment if the network is down. A local artist can’t share a digital portfolio with a visitor from the city without a stable connection. This divide emphasises separation. While city dwellers romanticise “switching off”, connectivity is a tool for inclusion.
When the network fails we are cut off from the digital public square; no news alerts, no access to the web, just a reminder that in South Africa the quality of your digital life still depends on your postal code.
As we head to our villages we will adapt. We’ll share Wi-Fi hotspots, rely on family with different networks and find joy in the moments of physical connection that disconnection forces upon us. But we shouldn’t have to choose between honouring our heritage and participating in the modern economy. This Easter perhaps the conversation should turn to how we bridge this gap.
South Africa’s telcos have a long way to go, but companies such as Telkom through Openserve are trying to enable young people in villages with “fibre-like” mobile and wireless services — high-speed, uncapped connectivity through LTE and prepaid fibre products.
What makes Telkom’s network unique is that it covers most of the country and other telcos must partner with Openserve to deliver much-needed services in villages. Let’s hope others, such as Maziv, which plans to spend R9bn, catch up soon for the benefit of South Africans.
Connectivity should not be a privilege reserved for cities and towns. It should be a right that follows every South African home, no matter how far the road stretches. Until then, charge your power banks and be prepared to hold your phone to the sky. Emakhaya are calling, even if the signal there is weak.
• Lourie is founder and editor of TechFinancials.
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