Pretoria’s free wi-fi project logs one million users
The City of Tshwane’s free wi-fi project is rapidly gaining traction and had hit one million unique connections, the city said on Friday.
Excited about how the project, which was launched in November 2013 is impacting on its residents, spokesperson Lindela Mashigo said the city reached its one million milestone on Wednesday. This meant that one million users had been able to access the service since the project started in November 2013.
A partnership between the city and Project Isizwe, the free wi-fi project was “the largest government funded public free wi-fi in South Africa”, said Mashigo.
Project Isizwe runs the Tobesta portal, which provides users with free online content.
Statistics showed that the city had 711 free internet zones (FIZ) supporting communities across the city. The majority of wi-fi users were between 18 and 24 years old, with 51 percent being men and 49 percent women. The data showed that 81 percent of users used mobile phones to access the internet via wi-fi.
Mashigo said each FIZ location allowed users with wi-fi enabled devices to access free internet without the need for log-ins or passwords.
Each user had a daily cap of 250MB through the project, and should they exceed this limit, they were able to gain unlimited access through Tobetsa. These two platforms, Mashigo said, “give local communities the power to access information, education, and jobs online, empowering them to up-skill themselves and partake in the mainstream economy like never before”.
ANA
File photo: Gallo Images