Santaco’s free taxi WiFi bonanza unveiled
South African taxi commuters will be afforded 50MB worth of free Wi-Fi per month on 3G and LTE (4G) platforms. as the service goes live today.
This is according to Wi-Taxi, the technology partner for the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco), who says that it will offer a number of additional services to commuters.
Telkom is also partnering with Santaco to launch free Wi-Fi connections at taxi ranks and in mini bus taxis around the country.
Santaco CEO, Nkululeko Buthelezi, recently told Talk Radio 702 that the project is part of an improvement in the group’s taxi service.
Sapa reported that a total of 1,500 taxis and 50 taxi ranks around the country will have access to free limited Wi-Fi connection within six months, moving to other provinces.
“We want to keep our 15 million daily commuters and attract more people back to using public transport in general and taxis in particular,” Santaco president Philip Taaibosch said.
Santaco said the installation of Wi-Fi in all taxis and taxi ranks would be done within three years.
Wi-Taxi said it will offer a broad range of services on the platform, including a commercial platform and advertising space.
The following service are on offer:
- Free 50mb Wi-Fi per month, for internet access;
- Purchase of airtime across all mobile networks;
- Purchase of Wi-Taxi mobile data bundles;
- Purchase of electricity vouchers;
- Financial Services ( Funeral, House Hold, Passenger policies);
- Legal Services.
According to Wi-Taxi, the taxi industry in South Africa transports over 15 million passengers daily with an average of 45 minutes per trip.
Santaco gave Wi-Taxi a mandate to roll out Wi-Fi hotspots on-board taxis and taxi ranks throughout the country within a specified period, it said.
The pilot project was undertaken between April – May of 2014 in Johannesburg, and will not lead to an increase in fairs.
“I can assure you it won’t cost the commuter an extra cent,” Buthelezi said.
He pointed out that the taxi fleet is a “strong 250,000” meaning that the process could take some time to complete. “We may not be everywhere,” he said.
He said that Santaco, in conjunction with Telkom, aimed to roll-out between 4,000-5,000 WiFi equipped taxis each month.
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