Tshwane announces 2,000 new free Wi-Fi hotspots
Tshwane Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa has announced that the city will ramp up its free Wi-Fi initiative by deploying a further 1,848 sites over the next 18 months.
In his state of the capital address this week, the mayor said that despite ‘unprecedented successes’ in delivering Wi-Fi, only 14.7% of the city’s citizens are currently within walking distance of a site.
“Over the next 18 months, Tshwane will deploy a further 1,848 sites, from Bronkhorstspruit to Hammanskraal, to Soshanguve, to Centurion and indeed, to the rest of Tshwane; thus ensuring that by the end of 2016, every single citizen of Tshwane is within walking distance of free Wi-Fi.”
“The City’s vision is to eventually provide free Wi-Fi connectivity in every street, every corner and to every household in the Capital City,” the mayor said.
Ramokgopa noted that in November 2013, the City of Tshwane successfully deployed phase 1 of the Tshwane free Wi-Fi network, beginning with a capacity of 25,000 users spread across five locations in Soshanguve, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville.
He said that the digital project boasts a current capacity able to serve over two million users across 575 sites, with a further 50 sites to be deployed by the end of the current financial year.
“In 2014, the average growth rate of usage was greater than 40 percent per month with an astounding growth rate of almost 185% between June and July of 2014 alone.
“We currently have coverage across all seven regions of Tshwane with at least one free Wi-Fi site in 96 wards. In addition, there are over 560,000 unique devices or users registered and almost 15 million total sessions have been logged thus far,” the mayor said.
In 2015 alone, there is an average usage of 152,000 users per month, representing a growth rate of approximately 279%, in comparison to the last calendar year, he added.
Tshwane launched Wi-Fi TV in November 2014 and in first five months since its launch, it has had over six million views.
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