Political decision makers have helped ensure the roll-out of free Wi-Fi access in South Africa’s City of Tshwane (Pretoria), says Alan Knott-Craig Jr.

Knott-Craig Jr -- a chartered accountant who was previously the chief executive officer of mobile messaging service Mxit and former CEO of wireless broadband service provider iBurst -- now heads up non-profit Project Isizwe.

This non-profit seeks to bring internet access to Africans by facilitating the roll-out of free Wi-Fi in public spaces in low-income areas. Project Isizwe also believes that internet should be considered an essential service like water or electricity, and that it should be available to everyone, regardless of circumstance.

And the City of Tshwane is the first recipient of Project Isizwe Wi-Fi. Locations with the service include the likes of Church Square in the central business district (CBD), education facilities such as the University of Pretoria (UP) in Hatfield and a community centre in the township of Mamelodi.

No login or password details are required to access the free Wi-Fi while a fair usage policy limits users to a data cap of 250MB. The likes of pornography websites are also blocked by the service to prevent abuse.

Average broadband speeds are planned to be 1 mbps download and 256 kbps upload.

Phase one of the project has been officially launched this week while the second-phase is set to connect an additional 213 free internet zones around Soshanguve, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville by the end of 2014.

Government workers from the likes of Tshwane IT, City Power and the water department have helped implement the Project Isizwe initiative. Private fixed line telecommunications firm Neotel has also supported the project by providing an internet breakout of 200 mbps.

Meanwhile, Knott-Craig told ITWeb Africa on Wednesday that Project Isizwe’ relationships with Tshwane government workers in particular has been key to rolling out such a project.

“There’s no technical reasons why this can’t be replicated everywhere, except political will,” Knott-Craig told ITWeb Africa.

“If you find a key political decision maker...you can get this done,” he said.

Knott-Craig further told ITWeb Africa that the first key requirement to getting this done is setting up a non-profit organisation to carry out the project so as to cut out a “middle-man” and any profit incentives.

“The second thing is we get to use all the municipalities’ buildings and rights of way and access without paying for it,” Knott-Craig told ITWeb Africa.

He went on to say that having government permission enables, for example, the quick laying down of fibre and digging up of public infrastructure where necessary: something that is difficult to achieve for private telecommunications firms.

“Then the last thing is that we’re using Wi-Fi,” Knott-Craig told ITWeb Africa.

“You just can’t do this if you’re using 3G, LTE: anything else is just too expensive.

“A Wi-Fi base station is setting us back R1000; a 3G base station sets you back R100,000,” Knott-Craig Jr. added.

On day one of the Wi-Fi service in Tshwane on Tuesday, 514 unique users, or devices, logged onto the network, according to Tim Human of Project Isizwe.

South Africa’s Tshwane joins Rwanda’s Kigali in free Wi-Fi efforts

Tshwane, though, is not the first African city to get free Wi-Fi access in public spaces.

In September, free Wi-Fi access became available in certain public spaces in Rwandan capital city Kigali.

The Wi-Fi roll-out, part of an initiative called Smart Kigali, plans to modernise the lifestyle of the capital city’s residents and visitors through the use of technology.

An official from Rwanda's ICT ministry told ITWeb Africa in September that free Wi-Fi has already been made available in certain public places including commercial buildings, bus stations, airport, public transport buses and taxis.

Like Tshwane, Rwandan government officials have also backed the Smart Kigali initiative with support from the likes of Rwanda’s Ministry of Youth and ICT (MYICT) and the City of Kigali.

Other partners have included the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), Rwanda Utilities and Regulatory Agency (RURA), Rwanda Hotel and Restaurant Association and an unnamed telecoms operator.

Project Isizwe looks further afield

In South Africa meanwhile, Project Isizwe is planning to conduct roll-outs of free Wi-Fi further afield than just Tshwane.

“There are various proposals on the table for cities in SA and further afield in Africa,” Tim Human told ITWeb Africa.

“South Africa is the test bed for now, but there is no reason for not applying a cookie-cutter approach and applying this to the rest of Africa,” he added.