Research: The Lived Costs of Communications
What is the real cost of communications for ordinary people?
R2K, in collaboration with the LINK Centre at Wits, has conducted a study on the lived cost of communications in South Africa. For many poor households in South Africa the cost of high telecommunications can have a crippling effect, forcing many to cut back on other necessities just to be able to afford airtime.
This study – conducted in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town – explores these lived experiences in depth and asks ordinary South Africans if they feel they are getting the quality of service and value for money they expect.
This research will lay further groundwork for R2K’s ongoing public campaign for more democratic access to telecommunications. Every person in South Africa has the right to access and impart information and to freedom of expression – rights that are enshrined in the constitution and which form the bedrock of a democratic, transparent and accountable democracy. Yet the high cost of communications in South Africa is a key obstacle to realising these rights.
Download the Lived Cost of Communications report here.
- Also see our new Activist Guide to Internet Access and the 2013 Activist Guide on the Right to Communicate.
- See updates on the campaign to democratise telecommunications at www.r2k.org.za/right2call.
