ICASA has finally made a decision on the legality of wireless hotspots in SA, saying that Telkom cannot declare their deployment illegal. This has prompted a pioneer of hotspots to announce that he will offer hotspots free of charge to the marketplace.
Although at least one large corporate, Intel, has stated that the ICASA ruling is unlikely to spur a sudden rush of hotspot deployment, Christopher Riley, CEO of The Notebook Company (www.notebook.co.za), said his company will offer "a number of hotspots free of charge to users". He said if there is a "good uptake" he intends to extend this offering aggressively, saying that this form of wireless connectivity is a development that can open communication doors for SA and place the country on the "First World technology map".
Steve Nossel, country manager for Intel SA, meanwhile, said there won`t be much of an uptake on hotspots until the cost of mobile and fixed-line bandwidth to support it comes down.
While Riley admits that the cost of bandwidth in SA - and Telkom`s ongoing monopoly - are restricting factors, he said hotspots are "major news" for "empowering SA business entrepreneurs and businesses at large".
"This is the fundamental reason why my company will be sponsoring a number of hotspots. Our first hotspot was up and running at a Pretoria restaurant a number of weeks ago, even though Telkom was, in their wisdom, deeming this type of activity to be illegal. This technology can be a major fillip for industry, and so we are going to be offering a number of hotspots for free," he said.
Riley said the number was "still undecided", but now that hotspots were declared legal, his company would be "moving ahead as fast as possible to pioneer this service" - and to be the first company in SA to offer this service for free.
"We need to embrace what technology is available. By sitting back and allowing the rest of the world to rush ahead of us is one way to be consigned to the backwaters of the new global economy. If Telkom had won this war it would have been a really bad blow to industry at large."
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