Project Isizwe has joined forces with fintech start-up VulaCoin in an ambitious plan to drive the adoption of internet on a pay-as-you-go basis across South African townships.
They say the new alliance was born out of the growing need to drive connectivity in townships, and are urging internet service providers (ISPs) to embrace flexible payment models to allow uptake in underserved areas.
In terms of the partnership, Project Isizwe, a non-profit organisation that brings internet access to low-income communities, uses VulaCoin, a Solana-based wallet and stable coin pinned to internet time, to facilitate network access and micro pay-as-you-go transactions.
Launched earlier this year, VulaCoin is a crypto-based mobile wallet that helps prepaid users digitise their cash with an internet-time-pinned stable coin.
The start-up says VulaCoin represents a reliable, traceable payment mechanism that can provide the backbone to facilitate the micro pay-as-you-go offering.
The wallet allows users to store, send and spend VulaCoin at no transaction cost to the user.
The Project Isizwe and VulaCoin relationship comes at a time when there are strong calls for private and public entities to take action and play a meaningful role in connecting underserviced areas.
Speaking to ITWeb yesterday on the sidelines of the ongoing the Wireless Access Providers Association conference in Muldersdrift, Shireen Powell, Project Isizwe CEO, said connecting underserved areas is now urgent, and for ISPs, this is a new frontier to monetise their services.
Powell explained: “People are saying townships are the new battleground, and it is unfortunate these areas have been overlooked. It’s unfortunate when we consider that in SA, 35% of the population lives in rural communities but only 1% have got internet access. That’s dire; it’s dire.
“I don’t know if there is the right amount of appreciation [of connecting townships] but what I do know is that there is urgency for ISPs to connect the townships.”
Commenting on the alliance with VulaCoin to drive connectivity, Powell said: “It is a beautiful partnership. VulaCoin was started recently, and Project Isizwe has been around for less than 10 years, and most of our work is done in rural communities, or the underserved communities.
“So we know that when going into these areas, we lead with internet connectivity; and while we are there, we need to monetise or be able to make people buy internet access because it’s a prepaid model.
“We have talked about the township economy as the unbanked economy, and basically what people have are coins – they have a R5 or R2, that sort of thing. Now they can obviously take that coin to one of our resellers and be able to buy internet through VulaCoin.
“By doing that, you are not just creating the ability to get onto the internet; you are creating opportunities for people to earn money because they make 20% on WiFi sales.
“I see products like VulaCoin becoming very useful in township economies. It’s massively important that you have products like VulaCoin as an over-layer on connectivity.”
Powell said partnership with government is also essential in the quest to connect the townships and other underserved areas.
“We need to work together with government, especially around spectrum requirements and what ISPs need from a spectrum perspective.”
For Cornelius Greyling, co-founder and CEO VulaCoin, to connect townships, monetisation of services is critical and pay-as-you-go is the business model for underserved areas.
“VulaCoin is a currency or payment mechanism tied to internet access. So, one VulaCoin allows you to buy one minute of internet. We built the whole system, whole platform to allow ISPs to monetise and grow the pay-as-you-go model.”
According to Greyling, customers in the lower LSM public prepaid internet space find it expensive to commit to large monthly prepaid transactions and postpaid is not an option for most.
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