MWEB to go big with public Wi-Fi zones

MWEB is intent on rolling out Wi-Fi zones across major centres in South Africa that should expand the ability of people to access high speed internet on the move.

The company announced last week the launch of a Wi-Fi zone in the popular Florida Road in Durban as part of its network expansion.

Unlike a Wi-Fi hotspot which is usually limited to one venue, the zones cover larger areas and users should see speeds of around 10mbps.

"For MWEB Wi-Fi it's less about the speed and more about rich media experience, and to deliver this they have designed the network in such a way that it provides more than adequate bandwidth to the user," Nathier Kasu, general manager of MWEB Wi-Fi told News24.

Wi-Fi has seen a resurgence after being relegated to the technology dustbin as excitement over Long Term Evolution (LTE) grew.

Challenges

However, in SA, high speed LTE which represents the fourth generation of mobile networks, has hit a roadblock as the government has been unwilling assign spectrum critical for the technology.

One of the biggest challenges is the national broadcaster which has been unwilling or unable to migrate its services out of the 800MHz band which is key for LTE services.

In the absence of LTE spectrum, companies and even some municipalities have been rushing to build Wi-Fi hotspots so that people may access the internet at higher speeds.

The City of Tshwane has a stated goal of blanketing the city with Wi-Fi coverage and has been successfully rolling out free Wi-Fi access for citizens.

"Tshwane has made history by becoming the first metro to roll out free Wi-Fi and indeed our announcement of the provision of this service was made before the City of New York's announcement - this is indeed a ground-breaking achievement for an African city," Executive Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa said in his State of the Capital City Address.

In her State of the Province Address, Western Cape Premier Helen Zille promised that the province would see universal internet coverage in a deal signed with Neotel.

"Neotel has therefore generously committed to funding the infrastructure rollout of 384 Wi-Fi hotspots, using Western Cape Government buildings, which will cover almost every ward in the province. Our government will be subsidising the free portion of citizens' internet access," Zille said.

Tourists

Global mobile operator Orange has also partnered with African Eagle Tourism to provide free Wi-Fi services within their fleet of vehicles. The service is primarily directed at tourists who value connectivity when visiting Cape Town.

MWEB is ambitious about its Wi-Fi programme and the company said that the data is unlimited to customers.

"MWEB is in the process if rolling out their solution at 16 hospitals and clinic across the country and has been able to rollout at 14 major malls in the country. To date MWEB WiFi over 140 000 people registered on the network," said Kasu.