13 Sep 2016

Residents of Francistown are not utilising the Wi-Fi network known as Botswana Hotspots launched in April last year.

This was meant to give Batswana flexibility to always be connected to the Internet.

Speaking in an interview recently, Ms Robina Mokokonyane, a salesperson from Marang Super Spar, explained that there were a few customers who bought vouchers for the hotspot.

She noted that when buying, customers often complained of the Wi-Fi not being available in the whole city, hence they did not see it important to buy vouchers.

Ms Mokokonyane said customers cited that even though the Wi-Fi was fast and reliable, they preferred to use their cell phone networks data bundles because it was not limited and they could use the internet within their homes.

She further said the customers explained that hotspot Wi-Fi was a great initiative as one could access internet services and moreover allow them to move from one spot to another and still remained connected but some of the locations were not friendly as they could not use their gadgets freely.

They feared that if they showed their gadgets openly in public, it could lead to them being attacked by criminals.

BoFiNet spokesperson, Ms Victoria Kgosi said the response was positive as the hotspots had realised growth in utilization from 7 073 users in April 2016 to 43 274 users in August due to the introduction of the free daily 30 minutes complimentary.

She said the challenges they found was lack of innovation from the Internet Service Providers (ISP) to provide relevant to market Wi-Fi products.

Furthermore, she said property owners still resisted allowing BoFiNet access to provide the hotspots services, which would in turn be beneficial to them and the public in general.

Ms Kgosi said initiatives will be put in place to engage local agencies to conduct public awareness campaigns on the use of Wi-Fi and internet in general.

The hotspots project was initiated in line with government’s Information Communication Technology (ICT) Policy and National Broadband Strategy in order to realise broadband penetration through the provision of affordable internet services for all citizens.

Wi-Fi hot spots locations enable customers to surf the internet service through wireless enabled devices, such as smartphones, i-pads, tablets and laptops.

The primary objectives of this wholesale Wi-Fi project were to provide increased broadband penetration to bridge the digital divide between the rural and urban areas, and to improve competitiveness in the downstream telecommunications market through improved infrastructure, services and products by the introduction of the hotspots. ENDS