Axxess hopes to transform the WiFi hotspot market by introducing prepaid broadband vouchers that allow consumers to connect to more than 600 hotspots located around the country.
Axxess claims this is one of the cheapest hotspot services, and vouchers are priced according to the amount of bandwidth they allow. Customers will have to use purchased bandwidth within the space of a year.
Director Franco Barbalich says Axxess had received a number of requests for broadband vouchers to be made available for use at its hotspots, located mainly in hospitals and restaurants, such as Mugg & Bean.
Barbalich explains that the vouchers will also be an alternative payment method to using credit cards at WiFi hotspots.
IDC analyst Richard Hurst agrees that this is part of what makes the service attractive to customers. "The prepaid vouchers will take away the risk of payment and this opens up the market to add more subscribers."
He adds that the launch of this service could eventually lead to cheaper broadband services.
"This product will bring more broadband users who previously relied on dial-up to access e-mail and general browsing; other ISPs will see this and offer similar products and eventually that will drive down the prices of broadband services."
MWeb's product development manager, Kelly Ledger, says the company is not looking at bringing out a similar product and views its current WiFi offering as compelling.
"That is not to say that we're not looking at WiFi to see where we can offer super value and ease of use for our current customers, as well as new ones. We may very well have something to announce in the not too distant future."
According to Axxess, the vouchers are available online and can also be purchased at Pick n Pay stores and Engen service stations. The vouchers range from R55 for a 100MB offering to R385 for 1GB.
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