If you live in South Africa, it’s hard to imagine having too much WiFi. Unless you live in the Western Cape. That’s because South Africans continue to pay ridiculously high amounts for data compared to other African and BRICS countries.
Local internet provider TooMuchWifi (yes, that’s their actual name) offers communities in the Western Cape unlimited access to WiFi for 24 hours for just R5. The company partnered with investors Mineworkers Investment Company and Bamboo Capital to offer low-cost internet access to the region.
TooMuchWiFi? Really?
What’s the catch? The downside? Because it sounds way too good to be true, even for the Western Cape. Turns out, there are one or two issues with the service.
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For now, it’s not available for all parts of the province. It’s hotspot-based internet access. Customers buy a voucher that lets them connect to hotspots around the community. These hotspots are available in public areas including local shops in townships around the Western Cape.
“TooMuchWifi is assisting in bridging the digital gap by providing internet access to communities that may not have it otherwise. This helps to create equal opportunities, allowing people to participate in the digital world regardless of their income or location,” says the internet service provider.
The upside is, unlike pretending to have an endless need for coffee or a cheap drink at a local restaurant in an urban area, you’ll at least be able to freely use the internet without being forced to buy something else to justify your long hours on the ‘net.
TooMuchWifi, which offers a range of internet products in more than 40 communities in the Western Cape, says it plans to expand the low-cost product to other parts of the country. That’s perhaps just as well. A service like this has been wanted for some time.
The Data Must Fall movement, which once called for this sort of internet access, died down after the big data providers in South Africa dished up a range of data products that made it seem like they had actually dropped the price of data. While some providers may have slightly dropped prices, South Africans continue to pay 134% more for data compared to other BRICS nations, according to the Worldwide Mobile Data Pricing 2022 Report.
