Among the most significant findings were:

-- The dial-up market has stalled since it passed the one-million mark for the first time in 2002, with rapid growth in Telkom Internet's service making up for tremendous churn in the customer bases of other dial-up ISPs;

-- As broadband access comes down in price and improves in performance, it will reduce the size of the dial-up market, unless more concrete efforts are made to reach disadvantaged communities;

-- The leased line market for corporate access remains healthy, bolstered by growth in Virtual Private Networks and corporate-grade Voice over IP. However, while the number of lines continues to grow to support volume of demand from existing users, it is not matched by equivalent growth in new users with access to such lines.

-- Schools connectivity has been a damp squib after much was promised by provincial authorities, with delivery delayed by up to three years;