Last year, the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies (DCDT) rolled over a R200 million allocation from its budget to provide 13 million households in South Africa with low-cost broadband access.
The move could see the government expand on its several already-launched free Wi-Fi services in metropolitan areas across the country.
The R200 million destined for the Broadband Access Fund formed part of phase 2 of the Presidential Employment Stimulus that President Cyril Ramaphosa launched in 2020 to support South Africans during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns.
“[This] will enable 13 million households to access broadband internet at an affordable rate and competitive speed,” the DCDT’s budget vote stated.
Ramaphosa’s cabinet approved the rollout of the project’s second phase towards the end of January 2022.
The DCDT said it had already begun engagement with the National Treasury.
“Funding has been requested from the National Treasury to establish the Broadband Fund with the objective to subsidise household connectivity and public Wi-Fi hotspots in low-income households and rural communities nationally,” it said.
“The Broadband Fund will be implemented under the SA Connect programme to leverage potential opportunities.”
The South African government has rolled out free Wi-Fi hotspots in three of the country’s major metros — Johannesburg, Tshwane, and Cape Town.
The Western Cape first started rolling out free Wi-Fi hotspots in 2015. As of the end of July 2022, it had 1,328 public Wi-Fi hotspots — up from 1,302 in the first week of the month.
After an oversight visit in June 2022, the provincial government revealed that public Wi-Fi users go through around 250TB of free data per month.
The City of Tshwane launched its free public Wi-Fi service — built by Project Iziswe — in November 2013.
The rollout marked the first phase of its project to provide free Wi-Fi to open public spaces throughout the city.
MyBroadband tested the service in mid-2022 and found that some sites still worked despite its app being unavailable.
The city provides residents with 1 GB of data per day at speeds of up to 15 Mbps at the free TshWi-Fi locations.
In Johannesburg, former mayor Parks Tau announced plans to provide 1,000 WiFi hotspots in the city in April 2014.
The aim was for the hotspots to go live before the end of Tau’s term in 2016. However, the project never took off.
In August 2016, the city’s head of broadband, Zolani Matabese, promised free Wi-Fi for all residents by August 2021.
The project, comprising 84 active Wi-Fi hotspots across the city, was relaunched in September 2020 and provides residents with 500MB of data per day.
Private free Wi-Fi projects
Several private companies, including ThinkWiFi and Isizwe, are working to provide free or low-cost broadband access to South African residents.
The ThinkWiFi service provides free Wi-Fi hotspots in several provinces, including KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng, and the Western Cape.
It is funded through revenue generated from advertising.
MyBroadband has tested the service in the past, and we found that users first had to watch Telkom and Showmax ads before they could start browsing.
The service then works uninterrupted for 30 minutes, after which users can elect to watch another ad to continue accessing the Internet.
At its inception, the Wi-Fi hotspot service was provided in partnership with Google. However, the tech giant shut down its Google Station free Wi-Fi programme and transferred its operations to ThinkWiFi in February 2020.
This was just a few months after the partners launched the first free Wi-Fi hotspots in the Western Cape.
Despite losing Google’s support, the service is still going strong, and ThinkWiFi has continued to grow its coverage footprint.
Non-free, but cheap higher quality broadband
Isizwe — the fibre network operator (FNO) promising to connect Kayamandi households with 100Mbps fibre for as little as R5 a day — launched in the township in November 2022.
The non-profit company aims to provide low-cost Wi-Fi-based broadband in lower-income areas.
Isizwe CEO Steve Briggs told MyBroadband Project Isizwe inspired the search for a commercially-sustainable model for low-cost prepaid township fibre.
Isizwe has partnered with several reputable companies, including Liquid Intelligent Technologies, EasyEquities, and Nokia, to achieve this goal.
As of 21 December 2022, Isizwe had increased the number of homes connected to its network from 3,000 to 4,500.
“We recently connected another chunk of the Kayamandi population, this time using Wi-Fi on a kind of gum pole, if you can call it that,” Briggs told MyBroadband.
“We call it a fibre tower, and that’s brought on about another 1,500 homes. We have now connected approximately 4,500 homes in Kayamandi.”
The FNO plans to expand its network to connect 22,000 homes by March 2023.
Isizwe has also been piloting Showmax vouchers to create a lower entry point for Kayamandi residents to access streaming services.
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