South African public hotspots account for a mere 0.15% of the total worldwide number, according to the international hotspot directory JiWire.
Public hotspots topped 110 500 throughout the 124 countries on JiWire`s database, but SA has only 164.
Local hotspot installation companies, Kooku Wireless and Skyrove, believe the high costs charged by larger players to implement WiFi hotspots contribute to this low figure, and say cheaper alternatives exist.
The reasons
"The high infrastructure and connectivity costs [of hotspot installation] have made it difficult to get any sort of return on your investment unless extremely high usage is experienced - and as a result the uptake has been slow," explains Kooku Wireless owner, Rene Brinkman.
Kooku Wireless offers WiFi hotspot installations for R700 per month for a 3GB cap, which Brinkman says is ample in most venues. There is no installation fee.
In response to Internet Solutions` 'hotspot in a box` offering, which retails for R5 500, Skyrove marketing director Allister Kreft says: "This is out of bounds - Skyrove has a similar solution which costs less than R1 000 for an integrated hotspot gateway and WiFi access point.
Counter-arguments
Always-On, a technology partner and systems integrator for Internet Solutions` WiFi initiatives, say although cheaper hotspot alternatives exist, the products are not the same.
"It is impossible to provide a quality hotspot solution for R1 000 unless it`s a free hotspot without any backend billing, reporting or support infrastructure, or international roaming partner integration," says Always-On director, Jaco van Tonder.
He says the problem with free hotspots is that the ADSL cap is often reached within the first few days of the month, adding that the 'hotspot in a box` solution guarantees uncapped ADSL, a 24-hour end-user help-desk and 24-hour hotspot monitoring.
Open source WiFi
"The Skyrove solution is open source - this means that technically proficient users can set up their own hotspot gateway, with off-the-shelf hardware such as Linksys WRT54GL," explains Kreft.
End-users connect to the hotspot with a prepaid account that can be loaded with 'airtime` via a credit card, he says.
"Competition is fantastic for the small business that wants to set up a hotspot solution. At first glance the market seems to be dominated by some big names, but a closer look reveals a range of offerings to meet the needs of any potential hotspot provider," he adds.
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