The bright promise of Project Isizwe

Alan Knott-Craig Jr believes Isizwe can become a de facto solution for access to the internet for the poor throughout SA.

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Project Isizwe continues to bring small but very bright sparks of internet connectivity to impoverished communities across South Africa, with Tshwane residents now following their Stellenbosch counterparts in having free Wi-Fi access to the internet.

"Project Isizwe facilitates the rollout of networks that are the first step to becoming part of the global community and economy," says Alan Knott-Craig Jr, the mastermind behind the free Wi-Fi project.

'Isizwe' (Xhosa for nation, tribe and people) was launched in Knott-Craig Jr's home town of Stellenbosch, where he was the driving force behind bringing free Wi-Fi to impoverished areas such as Pniel.

"And then the Tshwane launch went off without a hitch towards the end of last year, with the city now officially providing free Wi-Fi to 25 000 of its citizens, with another 200 000 to come onboard by mid-2014."

But, banking on Knott-Craig's enthusiasm and determination, this isn't the end of the story. For one, the second, R52-million phase of free Wi-Fi for Tshwane will see more than 200 sites around Soshanguve, Mamelodi and Atteridgeville coming online by the end of 2014.

"We have some other proposals bubbling, but for now, the great success and progress is coming from Tshwane, fortunately the home of most political leaders in South Africa," Knott-Craig Jr adds.

"With any luck, we can become the de facto solution for access to the internet for the poor for the whole country, and the rest will be history."

While there are many who are optimistic about the project, at least one local analyst argues that Isizwe may be a well thought-out, carefully constructed project with noble, relevant aims, but remains severely flawed and can't provide 'a truly valuable connectivity service'.

Ellie Hagopian, CEO at Skyrove, which describes itself as South Africa's largest independent Wi-Fi hotspot network, is only positive: "I'm a huge supporter of free Wi-Fi," she says, adding that she believes in the power of communications to enable people to 'do all sorts of amazing things'.

"Anyone in the industry will tell you that the cost of bandwidth is currently very low and dropping, and approaches zero at volume," she says.

"Abuse aside, there's no earthly reason not to open up some form of free connectivity in certain areas. Anything that can be done to get the ecosystem to work together to enable this or encourage competition in that area is only a good thing for everyone - people, industry and the economy."

The real expense is getting connectivity to a public institution, and once it's there, it makes sense to share the value with local users or the immediate community.

Alison Gillwald, Research ICT Africa

Encouraging feedback also comes from Alison Gillwald, executive director: Research ICT Africa, who says Isizwe not only reflects Wi-Fi developments elsewhere in the world, but addresses the paucity of local networks.

"With the dramatic growth of data on mobile networks, operators in other parts of the world regard feeding their traffic off to Wi-Fi networks as a significant way of relieving the pressure on their networks," she states.

Free government Wi-Fi is a characteristic of ubiquitous internet access strategies in highly connected countries such as Hong Kong and South Korea, providing at least limited public access for those who cannot access commercial networks, but also generally stimulating demand or supplementing data plans purchased by people who need always-on connectivity.

"In South Africa, the commercial opportunities have been undeveloped, and government has been slow to provide internet access through free Wi-Fi points at public buildings and facilities, although it's on the cards in a number of municipalities and provinces," Gillwald adds.

"The real expense is getting connectivity to a public institution, and once it's there, it makes sense to share the value with local users or the immediate community."

StrategyWorx analyst Steven Ambrose is the naysayer, arguing that Isizwe will not face issues on the technical side, which is addressed through partnerships with governments, municipalities and big business. But it will fail in its promise of offering a 'broad, good-quality and truly useful free Wi-Fi service'.

"Poor service quality will make the user experience frustrating and unsatisfying, which will drive people away rather than create any form of loyalty," he argues. "So-called free Wi-Fi of the type envisioned by Isizwe is always a heavily compromised service, and results in a sub-optimum user experience for most if not all users."

Knott-Craig Jr says he may have once agreed with these sentiments, because in years gone by, equipment was much more expensive, and also because he had no hands-on experience in rolling out a Wi-Fi network.

"The reservations of this analyst are bunk," he adds. "Of course it's imperative to offer a quality product, both when it comes to speed and reliability. But to argue that it should be uncapped and comparative to 3G or ADSL performance is a 'rich people' argument. It doesn't apply to low-income communities in South Africa or the rest of Africa. There's no internet access in these communities; citizens are desperate for connectivity."

Another issue for Ambrose is the 'overall limit' of Isizwe, which he says relegates the system to very light casual use: "The 1 Mbps speed is adequate but the 250MB cap is insufficient for much use at all. Heavy shaping is also applied. A few e-mails, one or two app updates on a mobile, and you've hit your cap."

Abuse aside, there's no earthly reason not to open up some form of free connectivity in certain areas.

Ellie Hagopian, Skyrove

Knott-Craig Jr brings up one of his favourite metaphors: "Imagine if water was 'uncapped'. People would never switch off the taps," he says. "Broadband is like water. It's not possible to have a sustainable uncapped broadband model, hence the cap of 250MB per day, which equates to 7.5GB per month."

Questioned on the practicality of the daily cap, Hagopian says Skyrove's average data consumption at public hotspots per device ranges between 10MG and 40MB but averages at between 15MG and 25MB.

"These aren't locations where people are using it as their only form of connectivity. But 250MB is a reasonable cap. That's over 7GB per month, free. You need to put some sort of limit on the service or it will be abused," she says. "When a Wi-Fi network doesn't work or doesn't work well, it's either because the upstream connection is poor or the Wi-Fi hardware itself is sub-standard. Neither of these is a technical problem - these are business model questions.

"Now, I run a Wi-Fi company, but I would also ask this question: what other technology is better suited? Not mobile, which is more expensive and provides slower speeds; 3G/LTE and Wi-Fi are, at present, the only true point to multi-point type solutions out there, so to reach the people where people have their own devices, Wi-Fi is an excellent choice," she says.

First published in the February 2014 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.