South Africa Faces R108bn–R142bn Bill to Reach 100Mbps for Every Home, DBSA Study Finds
South Africa’s drive to expand high-speed connectivity is facing a major funding reality: a new Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) study estimates the country needs between R108-billion and R142-billion in total investment to connect all households to 100Mbit/s broadband by 2035.
The figures were shared as part of the DBSA’s South Africa’s Digital Infrastructure Investment Study (Sadis) 2025, launched at the DBSA offices in Midrand on Monday. DBSA digital economy strategist Pieter Grootes said the 100Mbit/s benchmark is not a vanity target, but a threshold aimed at enabling meaningful connectivity rather than “signal on paper”.
The report was commissioned by the DBSA in partnership with the National Planning Commission, and Grootes led the compilation. The study draws on multiple information sources, including telecommunications market intelligence from Africa Analysis, and applies the World Bank’s Beyond the Gap approach to estimate investment needs.
100Mbit/s by 2035: the cost and the connectivity goal
Grootes outlined that Sadis looks specifically at the period 2026 to 2035, using 100Mbit/s as the universal service target. That speed mirrors a commitment made earlier under the SA Connect plan, which first set the expectation of delivering high-speed broadband broadly across the country.
Crucially, the study doesn’t treat the investment number as a single lump sum. It breaks total requirements into three cost categories: new build capex, replacement capex, and operational expenditure. This structure matters because it acknowledges that networks don’t just get built—they also need upgrading and ongoing operation to remain useful.
The wider aim, Grootes said, is to close the gap between coverage and usage. South Africa, he noted, already has a relatively wide wireless footprint: more than 98% of the population has 4G coverage. Yet the report focuses on the uncomfortable truth that availability does not automatically translate into real adoption, sustained usage, or productive access.
In other words, the study treats connectivity as a lived experience. It is not satisfied by households simply being within reach of a network tower or base station. Instead, it asks whether families can afford devices, services, and data in a way that supports regular digital participation.
Funding isn’t the only hurdle—demand and affordability matter
Even with infrastructure investment, Grootes said South Africa will not get the connectivity outcome it wants unless demand-side constraints are addressed. He pointed to affordability as the biggest limiter on how people can actually use digital tools day to day.
Many users, the report indicates, depend on mobile connections and often rely on “buckets of data” to stay connected. This approach can keep people online intermittently, but it also tends to limit the type of online activity that requires stable, high-speed service—especially at higher speeds like 100Mbit/s.
The study also flags the cost of devices as a barrier that is often underestimated. Grootes said the price of a “decently capable” device is more than 16% of South Africa’s universal basic minimum wage, meaning that even before monthly data costs are considered, many households struggle to purchase equipment that can fully use better networks.
He illustrated the trade-off bluntly: if a new smartphone would consume nearly a fifth of someone’s monthly minimum earnings, many households will postpone that purchase and prioritise basic needs instead. In his framing, the bottleneck is not only what people pay for services—it is what they can afford to spend upfront on the technology required to access those services.
That device affordability challenge links directly to the idea of “meaningful connectivity” the report keeps returning to. Grootes described the target as spending no more than 2% of household income per month on high-speed broadband, with broadband being always on rather than occasional.
Policy fragmentation slows rollout and raises consumer costs
While affordability and usage issues dominate the demand side, Grootes also highlighted policy constraints that prevent smoother rollout and expansion. He described fragmentation at both national and municipal levels as a dampener on growth.
At the national level, digital infrastructure policy is spread across different plans and mandates over time, including the National Development Plan (2012), SA Connect (2013), and the National Infrastructure Policy (2014). Grootes argued the country has policy frameworks, but what matters is execution—and implementation has not kept pace.
At municipal level, the report points to regulatory inconsistency. Companies attempting to access wayleaves can face contradictory requirements depending on which parts of government they interact with. Grootes said businesses are effectively “told different things by different parts of government”, which can slow projects and inflate costs.
Municipal fee structures can also become non-standard, the study indicates, increasing the overall cost of building and maintaining network infrastructure. Those added expenses do not stay on the balance sheets—they often get passed on to consumers, contributing to higher exclusion from the digital economy.
Grootes summarised the problem with a key message: a network that exists but cannot be used is not infrastructure—it is unrealised potential.
DBSA CEO Boitumelo Mosako reinforced the urgency, saying the real question is no longer whether digital infrastructure matters, but whether South Africa will move fast enough to position itself in the global digital economy rather than fall behind.
She referenced a broader global shift in investment priorities. Nations worldwide are reorganising around AI, data connectivity, and digital platforms, with capital flowing not just into roads, ports, and power, but also into fibre networks, data centres, and the broader data economy.
Mosako stressed that investment decisions cannot be guided by coverage alone. The focus must be on networks that people can use meaningfully—because the difference between being connected and being digitally empowered is the difference between potential and progress.
For South Africa to hit its 100Mbit/s household target by 2035, the DBSA study suggests the country will need to fund large-scale infrastructure while also tackling affordability, device costs, and fragmented implementation—otherwise, the nation risks paying for networks that remain, in practice, out of reach for many households.