Although Gauteng is moving ahead with its ambitious R1.2 billion broadband project, the Western Cape is a few steps ahead of SA's economic hub, with the latest WiFi project set to provide connectivity to residents on the go.
Metrorail is reportedly installing WiFi at Cape Town station, a project that will eventually expand to provide coverage on trains and at all stations on the city's southern line. This follows several other initiatives in the province, including Knysna municipality's 2006 project to set up 13 base stations, and sell data and voice over Internet Protocol services to residents.
In 2012, Stellenbosch residents and visitors could access free WiFi in an initiative driven by the town's university, in partnership with Mxit. The project also subsequently catered for the Knysna area.
Alan Knott-Craig Jr - former CEO of the social network - then left to found non-profit organisation (NPO), Project Isizwe, which aims to provide free ubiquitous connectivity across SA. The NPO is responsible for connecting residents of Atlantis and Robertson as part of the Western Cape government's pilot project to provide free WiFi to more than 90 000 residents across the province.
Other areas included in the project are Delft and the Garden Route, although schools will take priority in a bid to improve e-learning. Isizwe is also behind a project to provide free WiFi to all government educational institutions in the city of Tshwane by 2016.
Getting started
However, it will be some time before Gauteng residents benefit from a government-driven broadband initiative. The tender for the Gauteng Broadband Network project, which has been on the cards for several years, was finally awarded this February.
Altech, the company handling the rollout, notes the first phase of the project focuses on providing the core fibre infrastructure, as well as fibre connectivity into government buildings. Where there is no fibre, it will provide microwave links until fibre becomes available. The first links are excepted to go live this year.
However, WiFi will only become an integral part of the network once the core network is in place to provide easy and affordable access, but this timing will be determined by Gauteng, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Too slow
ICT veteran Adrian Schofield notes WiFi is becoming more ubiquitous and available for people who have WiFi-enabled devices, which is the way connectivity is going. Private companies such as Internet Solutions have rolled out thousands of hot spots across SA and are increasing these numbers.
However, Schofield says state-driven rollouts must happen faster, noting there is always the question of politics and priorities around such initiatives. He adds Gauteng is a few steps behind the Western Cape, but as SA's economic hub, faces larger challenges than other parts of the country.
Gauteng's network, which will be handed over to the province in five years' time, will incorporate 1 600km of high-speed fibre-optics and will consist of an initial eight core locations, no greater than 80km from the next core location, which will be connected by a 10GB "protection ring".
Provincial buildings will be connected by 1GB protection rings to each other and through dual 1GB connections to one of the core locations. Each core node will host 10 rings made up of 10 buildings in a ring. Ancillary services such as e-learning will be facilitated later.
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