Which City Leads Free Public Wifi in SA? (You’re Probably Wrong)
Cape Town has launched the first 50 of 384 planned public access Wi-Fi hotspots in partnership with the company Neotel, it announced on Wednesday, adding to more and more public wifi hotspots popping up around the country. “Most people and communities in rural, remote areas rely heavily on mobile phones to stay in touch and conduct business, and since mobile […]
Cape Town has launched the first 50 of 384 planned public access Wi-Fi hotspots in partnership with the company Neotel, it announced on Wednesday, adding to more and more public wifi hotspots popping up around the country.
“Most people and communities in rural, remote areas rely heavily on mobile phones to stay in touch and conduct business, and since mobile broadband costs are still unaffordable to many of our citizens, having wifi networks in place present them with options they would normally not have,” the city said.
The Cape Town hotspots will give users 300MB of free data daily the first month and 250MB after that, as well as unlimited free access to .gov.za websites (any time, on any connected device). There will be be 50 hotspots in the 2015/16 financial year, 100 in the 2016/17 financial year, and 234 hotspots in the 2017/18 financial year.
Cape Town has been quoted as saying it is more cautious than other cities in South Africa with its rollout of free wifi. Here is a list of the places in Cape Town.
In Johannesburg in late 2015, meanwhile, the city said it had at least 138 wifi hotspots, where each user gets 300MB of data per day. First to be connected were nine Rea Vaya bus stations across the city, as well as 50 percent of all libraries and clinics across its seven regions.
In November 2015, Johannesburg launched its first free wifi area in Braamfontein, called the Braamfontein Wireless Mesh project.
But – and here’s the answer to the initial question – the most advanced city for wifi seems to be Pretoria/Tshwane, where free wifi was started in November 2013. By late 2015 the city said that one million users had been able to access its service so far. The city has 673 hotspots – including education and health facilities, service delivery points and transport venues – and a further 1,848 set to be added by the end of 2016.
A partnership between Tshwane and Project Isizwe, a non-profit global movement that aims to provide free Internet to Africa, the free wifi project is “the largest government funded public free wi-fi in South Africa”, according to a city representative.
The city said that its collaboration with Project Isizwe has ensured successful installion of a fully managed free internet zone in to the Tshwane University of Technology’s Soshanguve Campus, the University of Pretoria’s Hatfield Campus, Tshwane North College, Mamelodi Community Centre and Church Square.