The surprising truth about free WiFi services in South Africa

In 2008 smartphones/tablets weren't as popular as today...
 
If you look at how many people use the free wifi in Gauteng I would say it is picking up.

I was in Beaufort West the other day and sat in a McDonalds with free wifi and I were using it. I am sure lots of people in Cape Town and Durban use there free Mugg and Bean wifi, but we are still not used to free wifi.

I would also like a always connected alwaysOn hotspot. The fact that I have to click on my browser really irrates me. Okay I use my MWEB wifi, but I don't want to log in. I just want to do it once, and from there on it must be remembered.
 
Really? Vodacom gave customers free wifi?!?! I never knew this.

Regardless, having to register for something is a pain in the ass, esp when you are able to get free wifi in so many places now.
 
Ykv said:
In 2008 smartphones/tablets weren't as popular as today...
Click to expand...

Exactly. What's surprising? This is obvious.
How many people were using tablets and wifi enabled phones back then? More vodacom bull $hitting

Also, registration process? People wanna just be able to use a service. Not still register and stuff. Then they just leave it rather.
 
Ykv said:
In 2008 smartphones/tablets weren't as popular as today...
Click to expand...

In other news:

In 1982 and 1983 Sony gave away free CD players to thousands of consumers, and the results of CD sales were unexpected
 
Ykv said:
In 2008 smartphones/tablets weren't as popular as today...
Click to expand...
I do not think smartphones will make much of a difference. The reason: smartphones have data available already, and to hassle of connecting to a WiFi hotspot and entering your credentials may be too much of a hassle.

It will be interesting if Vodacom does the same experiment now.
 
rpm said:
I do not think smartphones will make much of a difference. The reason: smartphones have data available already, and to hassle of connecting to a WiFi hotspot and entering your credentials may be too much of a hassle.

It will be interesting if Vodacom does the same experiment now.
Click to expand...

I disagree with you there RPM. My phone WiFi is almost always on for when I get to my house or my friends houses. There are just not enough WiFi hotspots in malls etc to make it feasible yet. I can't even get one the Mugg and bean wifi because it is so conjested, and there aren't that many laptops there.

If you could get mall with full WiFi coverage you would see the uptake in people using wifi. The hotspots are the limiting factor.

Edit: Oh, and I average 1-2 gigs over wifi and 150 megs on bundle on my smartphone, because all my updates and downloads are set to only happen over wifi.

The 150 meg is just for google now basically.
 
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I used free wifi hotspots only 2 or 3 times, and have not used it otherwise.

I get some free minutes with my Mweb subscription, i have not used it once.

I agree with some of the post above, the whole process of having to register, or go to a login page first, and having different hotspots at different placeis make it a bit of a mission to use.

The ease of use factor is what limits uptake. That and the fact hat at a restuarant etc, i may only want to quickly check mail or a website, for which the admin doesnt warrant the benefit of using the free service. For a couple megs, i might as well use my data bundle.

For me, if the network was open, and my phone/laptop could easily hop from one free hotspot to the next, that would be much better. Maybe i dont know howe to use the service properly - and thats something the networks must consider advising people about
 
phoneJunky said:
I disagree with you there RPM. My phone WiFi is almost always on for when I get to my house or my friends houses. There are just not enough WiFi hotspots in malls etc to make it feasible yet. I can't even get one the Mugg and bean wifi because it is so conjested, and there aren't that many laptops there.

If you could get mall with full WiFi coverage you would see the uptake in people using wifi. The hotspots are the limiting factor.

Edit: Oh, and I average 1-2 gigs over wifi and 150 megs on bundle on my smartphone, because all my updates and downloads are set to only happen over wifi.

The 150 meg is just for google now basically.
Click to expand...

Ecco said:
I used free wifi hotspots only 2 or 3 times, and have not used it otherwise.

I get some free minutes with my Mweb subscription, i have not used it once.

I agree with some of the post above, the whole process of having to register, or go to a login page first, and having different hotspots at different placeis make it a bit of a mission to use.

The ease of use factor is what limits uptake. That and the fact hat at a restuarant etc, i may only want to quickly check mail or a website, for which the admin doesnt warrant the benefit of using the free service. For a couple megs, i might as well use my data bundle.

For me, if the network was open, and my phone/laptop could easily hop from one free hotspot to the next, that would be much better. Maybe i dont know howe to use the service properly - and thats something the networks must consider advising people about
Click to expand...

Exactly. I'm a highly technical power user (IT Professional) and even I don't use free Wifi at the Mugg & Bean for my phone. Too much effort. I do use it on my laptop tho.
Give us proper open wifi networks at malls and other public places and watch the usage skyrocket. Look at America. Why do you think Google Glass and most Nexus devices (and Kindle Fire etc.) don't have 3G? Cos there's loads of open Wifi networks around (at least in the big cities)
 
If I spend 30 minutes in M&B, I do not want to use up 10 minutes going through a registration process on my phone, using a website which is non-mobi.

In 2008 my Nokia E71 with Symbian Series60 was a HOT smartphone :p. iPhone was bearly launched, and nobody new what Android was.
 
The 64 million dollar question:

Where are the wi-fi "hot spots" and how many?

How accessible are they to the general public?

Surprised - NO ...

Hotels, Guesthouses, the odd eatery at a mall?

Oh, wait, see Wimpy give a free half hour, great - not - download my mail, read it, comes time to reply - oops ... My half hour is finished - gotta pay ...

They can take their free half hour and shove it ...

Maybe they don't want you to occupy their table for more than half an hour?

Then why bother with the wi-fi in the first place ...
 
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Only time I've ever used it (and I'm really glad it was available) was at an airport. Twice actually. This was great for laptops before smart phones became hotspots. These days, with a phone that can become a hotspot... what is the point?
 
I use the free wifi where I have my car washed, but that's cos I'm usually bored & have time to waste. Other times I find my data bundle to be more convenient. Free wifi at restaurants etc not so much, I tend to go there for a different reason.

Give me free wifi at my house & you'll see a different story.
 
Few times wi-fi was available, try connect, need username + password, where do I start looking to find where/who/what do I get these. End of story, it is easier just to use my 3G data, no hassles, no bull****, what ever ...
 
Also used WiFi at the airport, but then it became too congested and they also started blocking VPN connections so I could not connect to home or work :(
 
Only time I ever used free WiFi was at the Town Lodge in Roodepoort where I recently stayed for 4 nights. The free WiFi (100MB /day) came in handy.
 
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