d (i.e. if a user runs out of bandwidth, he is cut off until the next month when he receives his next data allocation). However, that practice is also expected to be eradicated through regulations, allowing users to access as much bandwidth as they need.

Richard Hurst, a senior analyst with local res

While the South African online market remains small, email marketing is enjoying enormous growth. Experts say web traffic in South Africa increased by 48%, with users coming predominantly from higher income brackets.

Adoption of email marketing is expected to growth exponentially as more South Africans gain access to the Internet. Currently, more than five million people, out of a population of forty-six million, have internet access, with three hundred thousand of that access being broadband.

One of the problems that inhibited internet adoption in South Africa was the high price of connectivity, with a number of researchers showing that access in South Africa costs a thousand times more than one one would pay internationally.

In the past year, pressure was exerted on the fixed line and mobile phone operators to lower prices, and as result, prices have come down, leading to increased adoption of services. However, the market is still emerging, and there are a number of hindrances that need to be sorted out before the internet adoption and associated services come into their own.

The second problem that inhibits internet usage in South Africa is the usage capping that providers introduced (i.e. if a user runs out of bandwidth, he is cut off until the next month when he receives his next data allocation). However, that practice is also expected to be eradicated through regulations, allowing users to access as much bandwidth as they need.

Richard Hurst, a senior analyst with local rese

ns gain access to the Internet. Currently, more than five million people, out of a population of forty-six million, have internet access, with three hundred thousand of that access being broadband.

One of the problems that inhibited internet adoption in South Africa was the high price of connectivity, with a number of researchers showing that access in South Africa costs a thousand times more than one one would pay internationally.

In the past year, pressure was exerted on the fixed line and mobile phone operators to lower prices, and as result, prices have come down, leading to increased adoption of services. However, the market is still emerging, and there are a number of hindrances that need to be sorted out before the internet adoption and associated services come into their own.

The second problem that inhibits internet usage in South Africa is the usage capping that providers introduced (i.e. if a user runs out of bandwidth, he is cut off until the next month when he receives his next data allocation). However, that practice is also expected to be eradicated through regulations, allowing users to access as much bandwidth as they need.

Richard Hurst, a senior analyst with local res

, with a number of researchers showing that access in South Africa costs a thousand times more than one one would pay internationally.

In the past year, pressure was exerted on the fixed line and mobile phone operators to lower prices, and as result, prices have come down, leading to increased adoption of services. However, the market is still emerging, and there are a number of hindrances that need to be sorted out before the internet adoption and associated services come into their own.

The second problem that inhibits internet usage in South Africa is the usage capping that providers introduced (i.e. if a user runs out of bandwidth, he is cut off until the next month when he receives his next data allocation). However, that practice is also expected to be eradicated through regulations, allowing users to access as much bandwidth as they need.

Richard Hurst, a senior analyst with local res

n of services. However, the market is still emerging, and there are a number of hindrances that need to be sorted out before the internet adoption and associated services come into their own.

The second problem that inhibits internet usage in South Africa is the usage capping that providers introduced (i.e. if a user runs out of bandwidth, he is cut off until the next month when he receives his next data allocation). However, that practice is also expected to be eradicated through regulations, allowing users to access as much bandwidth as they need.

Richard Hurst, a senior analyst with local res

d (i.e. if a user runs out of bandwidth, he is cut off until the next month when he receives his next data allocation). However, that practice is also expected to be eradicated through regulations, allowing users to access as much bandwidth as they need.

Richard Hurst, a senior analyst with local research house BMI-TechKnowledge says broadband is staging a staging a revolution in South Africa. He says internet access prices will fall by as much as 70% by 2010, bringing them in line with accepted international standards.

Broadband connections will grow to 2.5 million, and could go as high as 3.5 million, if prices continued to drop at a high rate, he says. This will in turn result in 30% of the South African professional workforce becoming mobile workers, he says. In the long-term, as the growth in internet penetration leads to more people seeing internet and email marketing as a viable business option, the South African market will present an attractive target market for those strategically placed to take advantage of it.

The high unemployment rate, and the need for young graduates to start their own businesses straight out of university, also makes turn-key business opportunities, which have already been tried and tested elsewhere, an attractive business proposition for the locals.