Airports Company South Africa (ACSA), Internet Solutions (IS) and MWEB have made their wireless (WiFi) hotspots accessible in an easy-to-connect manner.
WiFi has been in use at Johannesburg International Airport (JIA) for several years, as well as more recently at Cape Town and Durban International Airports.
"Mobility changes both your lifestyle and your working environment, and it is becoming more common to see businessmen taking a working breakfast at a WiFi-enabled Mugg & Bean coffee shop, rather than sitting in rush-hour traffic," says Nico Pretorius, a WiFi consultant at ACSA.
"We have seen dramatic growth and demand for this service at JIA. We recently conducted a survey in which 75% of the respondents claimed to be aware of WiFi, and although only 37% claimed to have tried it before, after experiencing it, 83% said that they would use it again."
He says international travellers with existing accounts in their home countries can also log in directly through various hotspot roaming agreements such as WeRoam, IPASS or Quiconnect.
According to Andr'e Joubert, GM of MWEB Business, the company will offer members 300 free WiFi access minutes per month, as well as competitive per minute rates for any additional time spent online, while IS Corporate clients will be billed on their corporate monthly invoice.
"MWEB is committed to improving the productivity of our customers when they are away from home or the office, through the provision of an immediate and reliable connection," he says.
"We believe there is incredible growth to come in terms of WiFi, because it is convenient, easy to use, is reasonably cheap, addictive for users and most importantly, it is becoming easier to find, with geographical barriers barely affecting it."
He says geography is less important now, as both IS corporate customers and MWEB members can gain access at more than 20 000 hotspots around the world, thanks to a recently signed agreement with hotspot aggregator IPASS.
Richard Vester, GM for mobility at IS, says it is getting to the point now where people arriving at JIA simply expect to be able to connect, because the technology is growing so fast.
"For this reason, we are planning an additional 45 sites by the end of 2005, on top of the existing 50, and this will include at least one large roll-out within a hospitality chain."
At present there are managed hotspots at the three airports, 11 City Lodges, 10 Mugg & Bean coffee shops - with an additional seven going live by the end of June - 21 News Caf'es and several other hotels, restaurants and pubs.
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