The City of Cape Town has unveiled three more free WiFi zones in the central business district as part of the city's project to bring connectivity to its citizens.
In a statement, the city says the new WiFi hotspots are situated at the Gallows Hill Traffic Department, at the City Hall and in the Civic Centre.
While the WiFi access comes free of charge, each person will receive a capped amount of data that will enable them to connect to their e-mails, read the news or engage in online social activities.
Councillor Xanthea Limberg, Cape Town's mayoral committee member for corporate services and compliance, says: "The provision of WiFi is a key part of our integration strategies where we aim to connect more people to services and opportunities. The combination of a daily data allowance, fast access speeds of 40MB per second and the wide distribution of WiFi zones, means a truly useful service that makes a difference to the lives of many residents.
"This is a cornerstone of our strategy to build a city of opportunity and to help make progress possible for our residents. A lack of Internet access could mean missed opportunities, which could prevent many people from achieving their goals and dreams," she adds.
According to the city, most of the WiFi zones installed so far are in public centres and suburbs such as Nyanga, Kraaifontein, Seawinds, Philippi and Khayelitsha that have been neglected by commercial service providers.
To date, the city has unveiled 41 WiFi zones in public libraries, which is in addition to the free Internet access already available via the SmartCape facility at all city libraries. As a part of the upgrades at a number of the city's healthcare facilities, 19 clinics have been connected to free WiFi.
"Our libraries and health facilities attract a large number of residents on a daily basis and the free WiFi can be seen as a value-added service," says Limberg.
About 60 more WiFi zones are on the cards for the new financial year (2016/17) to be rolled out by June 2017, she adds.
For the current financial year, the city has a capital budget of R218 million for its broadband network rollout project. To date, R33 million has been spent on rolling out a wireless network.
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