• Engaging with effective governance

      Giving South African municipalities access to the tools and technologies it needs to thrive, was the driving force behind BCX SOLAR. Giving South African municipalities access to the tools and technologies it needs to thrive, was the driving force behind BCX SOLAR.

      Mining Sector

      Increase productivity & build a culture of innovation

      Financial Sector

      Meet the challenges of disruption & cyber security

      Healthcare Sector

      Empower your patients & leverage data by deploying customised solutions

      Retail Sector

      Embrace the changing retail landscape & know your customer

      Government Sector

      Use digital transformation to grow the economy & build capacity

      Industries Overview >

    • Cloud
      Reimagine success

      Accelerate your business ambitions with cloud computing solutions from BCX.

      Digital Innovation Awards

      BCX Digital Innovation Awards

      Cloud

      Computing for today & the future

      Digital Transformation

      Intelligent systems upgrading

      Analytics

      Data that works for you

      Applications

      Tools to streamline operations

      Services

      Strategies for efficient ICT
      Healthcare Solutions

      Healthcare Solutions

      Applications for healthcare
      BCX ERP Solutions

      SOLAR ERP Solutions

      Connect, integrate, and optimise

      Security

      Protection for your critical systems

      Devices

      Processes & network foundations

      Connectivity

      Connections within & without

      Partners

      Partnerships moving business forward
      BCX HR and Payroll

      HR and Payroll Solutions

      Everything to manage people & payroll

      Solutions Overview >

    • Our Offices
      BCX Head Office
      1021 Lenchen Avenue North
      Centurion, Gauteng
      South Africa
      0157
      Botswana

      Botswana

      Mozambique

      Mozambique

      Namibia

      Namibia

      Zambia

      Zambia

      UK

      United Kingdom

      Our Global Footprint Overview >

    • Speak To An Expert
      We'll need just a few details from you, and one of our specialists will be in touch as soon as possible.
      BCX HEAD OFFICE

      Employee Entrance:

      1021 Lenchen Avenue North
      Centurion
      Gauteng
      South Africa
      0157

      Visitors Entrance:

      1266 South Road
      Centurion
      Gauteng
      South Africa
      0157
What to consider when connecting public sector agencies
Home > What to consider when connecting public sector agencies

What to consider when connecting public sector agencies

16 November, 2022
Service delivery across South Africa’s urban and rural areas can only effectively be enabled by connectivity. What five things do government leaders need to consider when connecting their departments and branches?

With a wave of public sector digital transformation underway, worldwide government IT spending is expected to total $565.7 billion in 2022, an increase of 5% from 2021, says Gartner, with additional investment in cloud platforms and Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS).

Catalysed by the pandemic, governments are committed to accelerating their digital transformation. But Deloitte research shows that most government agencies around the world have a long way to go before they can be considered digitally mature. Only 26% of government agencies polled in eight countries felt they were highly digitally mature.

Deloitte noted that a government that can evolve from ‘doing’ digital or ‘becoming’ digital to ‘being digital’ would significantly improve service delivery and customer experience, enabling universal digital identity, resilient and proactive government operations, and real-time data intelligence.

To move towards the digital government ideal, the public sector must first break down silos between data stores and departments, and connect all its people, systems and data with robust, fast and ultra-secure networks.

South Africa’s public sector is cognisant of the game-changing role high-speed access plays: Minister Khumbudzo Ntshavheni noted in the Communications And Digital Technologies Department Budget Vote 2022/23 that Cabinet had approved a revised model and implementation plan for the SA Connect Phase 2 programme, which aims to achieve universal access by 2024.

This revised model will see Sentech and Broadband InfraCo working with Access Network Service Providers, Internet Service Providers and Mobile Virtual Network Operators to roll out 33,539 community Wi-Fi hotspots; while SITA will provide and maintain connectivity to 15,691 government sites over the next three years.

However, high speed and capacity are not the only considerations when implementing networks to support the digital government of the future.

The following five factors must be taken into account when connecting South African public sector agencies:

Security and compliance: As the public sector deals with personal and sensitive information, security and compliance are crucial. SD-WAN is an immensely powerful tool to simplify WAN and branch management, and support connectivity without compromise. SASE (Secure Access Service Edge) – SD-WAN plus Zero Trust security – supports access through a simplified, cloud-native security service with unified policy enforcement, supporting organisations with multi-cloud requirements.

Fit for purpose: For fast, resilient, and secure connectivity, FTTB (Fibre to the Business) delivers speeds of up to 500Mbps, with low latency and the ability to prioritise certain traffic at peak times. However, while high-speed fibre connections are the ideal, these are not always feasible in the remotest regions.

For enhanced branch customer experience, a scalable internet service offers compliant fast, symmetric speeds with ultra-low latency with a number of security options. To support branches not served by fibre networks, Fixed Wireless Access connectivity offers a good alternative for voice and high-speed data traffic. Microwave offers high-throughput bandwidth of up to 1Gbps. Another option where conventional network connections are not available is VSAT satellite connectivity, which delivers speeds of up to 20Mbps with reliable and robust connectivity, as a hybrid of LTE with a roadmap to 5G providing Rate Limited Access for backup and Unlimited for Primary solutions. BCX’s Converged Communications portfolio has a multitude of fit-for-purpose solutions to secure branches and enable compliance as required.

Connectivity for wireless enabled premises: For improved user experience and wider coverage, Wi-Fi 6 offers reduced interference, latency and jitter, wider coverage and shared spectrum between multiple users for better connectivity performance. This solves the problem of wireless signal coverage over long distances to support asset and people tracking for health and safety applications, as well as contact tracing.

Resources: Skilled IT resources are hard to come by, challenging efforts to transform the public sector and harness the opportunities presented by the cloud. Managed infrastructure and cloud services offer a solution to this challenge, ensuring that skilled and cost-effective resources are at the organisation’s disposal to design, implement and manage networks, manage information security and disaster recovery, and support development and new initiatives.

Accessibility: E-government is a wasted effort if the majority of citizens cannot afford to access digital services. To enable this, the public sector can zero-rate access to digital services through sponsored internet, which reverse bills the data used by citizens when they access e-government platforms.

Share

SPEAK TO AN EXPERT

 We'll just need a few details from you, and one of our specialists will be in touch.

Consent
Please read our Privacy Statement & Consent Clause to understand what happens to your personal information.

RELATED POSTS