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The city of Johannesburg has relaunched its free WiFi project, comprising 84 active free WiFi access points from Joburg throughout the city.
“Today we relaunch the free #JoburgWiFi hotspot implementation. This is after the implementation of free WiFi went into the background in the last four years,” tweeted the city of Johannesburg.
The project provides Johannesburg residents with 500MB of data per day, up from 300MB the last time the city tried to launch this initiative. The speeds available through these connections are limited to 5 Mbps.
“More than 1,000 km of fiber optic cable has been laid in the city as the backbone of the smart city initiative to provide connectivity and high-speed broadband,” said Jolidee Matongo, member of the finance committee of the mayor of Johannesburg.
Rand 40 million has been allocated as of 2020/2021 # JoburgBudget20 in the unfolding of the free #JoburgWiFi access points to hostels, apartments, student villages and retirement homes. “
The city of Johannesburg said the city and its residents should take advantage of this infrastructure to improve municipal service delivery, attract business opportunities, seek employment and access academic materials.
All of these access points will be powered by solar power and run by the city of Johannesburg’s broadband network company, Metropolitan Trading Company.
The city said more than 6,000 devices have already accessed these access points, and the city plans to further improve the system, for example by implementing analytics to ensure “detailed reports on access point usage.”
“We conducted a study in 2012 and the findings prompted the smart city initiative in underdeveloped communities within the City,” Matongo said.
The vision of free Wi-Fi in Joburg
Johannesburg city promised In August 2016, all Johannesburg residents could access free Wi-Fi for the next five years.
The city’s broadband director, Zolani Matabese, said at the time that the goal of the initiative would be to empower citizens and provide them with new opportunities.
“You can use the Internet to look for work. It’s just an empowerment of your ability to be a digital citizen because if you aren’t these days, you are falling behind, ”Matabese said.
Originally, the goal was to have 1,000 access points installed by the end of 2016 and for Johannesburg to become a smart city by 2020.
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