Pretoria - The City of Tshwane has provided residents with free internet access through more than 780 Wi-Fi zones - but many hotspots have not been working for a while, according to users.
The users said they had experienced frequent disruptions to the TshWi-Fi network, mainly in Mamelodi, Ga-Rankuwa, Centurion and Soshanguve.
Tshwane University of Technology student Bokamoso Mabiletsa said it was difficult for him to do his assignments as he was dependent on the free wi-fi.
“I do my assignment online, so it is very difficult for me to live without it because I don’t live inside the campus where there is internet access,” he said.
Mmakgotso Ramaite said she had been using the free Wi-Fi for job hunting, but it had not been working for about a week. “Normally, it would alert us before going off, but now it just goes off without a warning,” she said.
While some felt the unavailability of the internet was due to cable theft or the current persistent rainfall, Lerato Dube from Soshanguve felt it was political sabotage. “This has to do with settling political scores; I hate it when people use us to fight their political battles,” she said. “One minute it works the next it does not. We rely heavily on it for lots of things.” However, the MMC for Corporate and Shared Services, Cilliers Brink, said the city had experienced areas of power outage in Ga-Rankuwa, Soshanguve and other parts of the region. “This may be one of the reason for some of the free Wi-Fi interruptions. The city and project Isizwe detect most of these problems by an early warning system.”
Brink said another major problem was that one site which fed many hotspots in Ga-Rankuwa and Soshanguve was powered by solar panels. “These panels are constantly being stolen and project Isizwe will be moving the high-site to a more secure location.”
Brink said other major problems were politically motivated as some other ANC members conspired to sabotage the DA-led municipality.
“We know that Tshwane free Wi-Fi is a much contested political issue. The ANC is hell-bent on selling the story that the DA wants to shut down the service, while in fact we want to save it,” he said. He believed ANC comrades received incentives to carry out the sabotage and disrupt services in the city.
The ANC previously said Msimanga’s administration had begun to curtail the free Wi-Fi, and warned the discontinuation of the service would spark resistance.