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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Telkom is also partnering with Santaco to launch free\u00a0Wi-Fi connections at taxi ranks and in mini bus taxis around the country.<\/p>\n
Santaco CEO, Nkululeko Buthelezi, recently told Talk Radio 702 <\/a>that the project is part of an improvement in the group\u2019s taxi service.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n “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.<\/p>\n Santaco said the installation of Wi-Fi in all taxis and taxi ranks would be done within three years.<\/p>\n Wi-Taxi said it will offer a broad range of services on the platform, including a commercial platform and advertising space.<\/p>\n The following service are on offer:<\/p>\n According to Wi-Taxi, the taxi industry in South Africa transports over 15 million passengers daily with an average of 45 minutes per trip.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The pilot project was undertaken between April – May of 2014 in Johannesburg, and will not lead to an increase in fairs.<\/p>\n \u201cI can assure you it won\u2019t cost the commuter an extra cent,\u201d\u00a0Buthelezi said.<\/p>\n He pointed out that the taxi fleet is a \u201cstrong 250,000\u201d meaning that the process could take some time to complete. \u201cWe may not be everywhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He said that Santaco, in conjunction with Telkom, aimed to roll-out between 4,000-5,000 WiFi equipped taxis each month.<\/p>\n Free WiFi for SA taxis<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n WiFi on South African train carriages<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n
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