political will is key to unlocking free Wi-Fi zones in Africa

Political decision makers have helped ensure the roll-out of free Wi-Fi access in South Africa’s City of Tshwane (Pretoria), says Alan Knott-Craig Jr.

Knott-Craig Jr -- a chartered accountant who was previously the chief executive officer of mobile messaging service Mxit and former CEO of wireless broadband service provider iBurst -- now heads up non-profit Project Isizwe.

This non-profit seeks to bring internet access to Africans by facilitating the roll-out of free Wi-Fi in public spaces in low-income areas. Project Isizwe also believes that internet should be considered an essential service like water or electricity, and that it should be available to everyone, regardless of circumstance.

And the City of Tshwane is the first recipient of Project Isizwe Wi-Fi. Locations with the service include the likes of Church Square in the central business district (CBD), education facilities such as the University of Pretoria (UP) in Hatfield and a community centre in the township of Mamelodi.

No login or password details are required to access the free Wi-Fi while a fair usage policy limits users to a data cap of 250MB. The likes of pornography websites are also blocked by the service to prevent abuse.

Average broadband speeds are planned to be 1 mbps download and 256 kbps upload.

Phase one of the project has been officially launched this week while the second-phase is set to connect an additional 213 free internet zones around Soshanguve, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville by the end of 2014.

Government workers from the likes of Tshwane IT, City Power and the water department have helped implement the Project Isizwe initiative. Private fixed line telecommunications firm Neotel has also supported the project by providing an internet breakout of 200 mbps.

Meanwhile, Knott-Craig told ITWeb Africa on Wednesday that Project Isizwe’ relationships with Tshwane government workers in particular has been key to rolling out such a project.

“There’s no technical reasons why this can’t be replicated everywhere, except political will,” Knott-Craig told ITWeb Africa.

“If you find a key political decision maker...you can get this done,” he said.

Knott-Craig further told ITWeb Africa that the first key requirement to getting this done is setting up a non-profit organisation to carry out the project so as to cut out a “middle-man” and any profit incentives.

source : itwebafrica.com