Pretoria - Project Isizwe, the company contracted to the City of Tshwane to provide free wi-fi, had not made any profit out of R320 million spent on the service since 2013, they said on Thursday.
Company spokesperson Dudu Mkhwanazi said, instead, the service provider had saved more than R1 billion for free wi-fi users in the municipality.
She said in terms of average cost per megabyte, users would have paid 25c if they had used 3G data instead of free wi-fi.
Mkhwanazi said: “Without free wi-fi, users would be paying 25c/MB on average."
This would have resulted in a staggering R1.3 billion total data cost.
"Instead, the city spent only 6c/MB, saving over R1bn in data costs while providing users with a free service.
"This allows low-income users to improve their lives through access to entrepreneurial and educational opportunities that the internet provides.”
She said Isizwe was a non-profit organisation with as its primary mission advocating for internet access.
“Our essential mission is to advocate for internet access. We are not making money out of it. We didn’t make money out of the deal,” Mkhwanazi said.
Isizwe recently released a media statement to show how it had saved residents of the capital from using expensive data.
Mkhwanazi quashed suggestions that the statement was intended to market the company to the DA-led administration, given that its contract would end in December.
“The statement was not actually to serve as a marketing strategy for the company. It was directed to show people about the advantages they are getting in using the free wi-fi,” she said.
In June, the City announced it would put out the contract on tender after the Isizwe deal had expired.
Mkhwanazi said Isizwe had no intention of competing for a tender after its contract with the city ended.
The company would focus on replicating the project in partnership with other municipalities.
According to her, 3.2million wi-fi users were relying on the service for free internet access across the city.
Mkhwanazi said the company wanted to put the facts out there on how the company had assisted the public to gain internet access.
The amount of data that TshWi-Fi has carried since inception in 2013 was 5157 terabytes, and its total cost was R320m.
Mkhwanazi said the project was part of the city’s vision to be one of the most connected cities on the African continent.
Speculation was rife a few months ago that some wi-fi hotspots could be switched off due to a shortage of funds.
MMC for Corporate and Shared Services Cilliers Brink said the city was not planning on cutting off the free wi-fi.
However, he expressed concern about a sustainable funding and infrastructure model for the free wi-fi.
Brink said the city could not continue to pay Project Isizwe on the same basis as in the past. Also, that further expenditure on TshWi-Fi has to be justified in terms of supply chain management laws and regulations.
The City had put aside more than R8m for wi-fi, but a sustainable way of funding it was needed.
The cost of the network at current performance levels is R3.5m per month.