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Tshwane free WiFi gets a speed upgrade

The speed of Tshwane’s Free WiFi network has doubled.

According to a statement from Project Isizwe‚ a non-profit organisation which facilitates the roll-out of free Internet connectivity in SA‚ “the City of Tshwane has recently upgraded the maximum speeds…to 15mbps”.

This is up from the previous average speed of 7mbps.

The network has‚ the statement boasted‚ “grown to 633 sites over the past 18 months‚ resulting in economies of scale that can be passed to citizens in the form of faster WiFi speeds without any additional cost to the city”.

The new speed‚ however‚ has not meant a change in the daily cap — which remains at 250MB – bu Project Isizwe claimed that “an average of only 7% of users” reach their limit.

Project Isizwe COO Zahir Khan said Tshwane had already surpassed national targets.

“The Tshwane Free WiFi service not only aligns to the SA Connect objective for 2016 of ‘connecting 50% of broadband users at speeds of 10mbps’‚” Khan said.

“It goes further to connect various schools and health facilities through the service‚ bringing broadband closer to a digitally included citizenry in the city for improved education‚ economic development and social cohesion.”

Project Isizwe also released some facts and figures on the Tshwane Free WiFi project up until July 2015:

 

- 633 live sites

- Wards covered with Tshwane Free WiFi 95%

- Unique users to date 720000-plus

- Connections made to date 22-million

- Average monthly unique users (2015) 165000-plus

- User profile is 48% female and 80% of users are under 35

- 81% of connections are made via mobile phones‚ 11% on computers and 8% on tablets

The majority of the 633 Free WiFi sites are education facilities (514)‚ 29 are health facilities‚ 41 service delivery sites‚ and 10 tourism and heritage sites are covered.

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