Why South Africans choose mobile data over public Wi-Fi

Jan

Jan

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South Africans would rather pay for mobile data than use public Wi-Fi

Commercial Wi-Fi services launched in South Africa, such as those from Telkom, Mweb, and VAST Networks, ultimately fail, primarily due to improved mobile data speeds and missed opportunities.

MyBroadband spoke to Vox Telecoms' Wi-Fi product manager, Craig Blignaut, to find out why such services failed.
 
whatwhat said:
Because these public WIFI services require so much PII data to register to use (email, name, phone, etc.)
Nobody got time for that.
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Either that, or they're just a hack to sign in to and then only give you like 150mb of data to use in the session so just totally aren't worth the effort.
 
First question is why do people want to use internet in a public place?
Is it quickly checking Whatsapp/Telegram/Email/Twitter/? Or is it watching the latest episode of Obi-Wan Garbage on Disney+?

The reality is that the type of thing that people do in places where public wifi is available is the type of thing that mobile data is cheap enough for.
 
Free Wifi means you have to share your information a lot of the time. Unless you have some fake account details you can use and a VPN I would not suggest touching them.
 
konfab said:
First question is why do people want to use internet in a public place?
Is it quickly checking Whatsapp/Telegram/Email/Twitter/? Or is it watching the latest episode of Obi-Wan Garbage on Disney+?

The reality is that the type of thing that people do in places where public wifi is available is the type of thing that mobile data is cheap enough for.
Click to expand...

Depends on the use case..

Vast majority of the time, I am never even aware that Free Wifi is an option wherever I am since I have mobile data to satisfy any messaging/etc requirements.

During Loadshedding though, then mobile data can become very damned expensive trying to work... so Free Wifi actually becomes an enticing option, and its largely "safe" enough when using a VPN for work reasons.
 
konfab said:
First question is why do people want to use internet in a public place?
Is it quickly checking Whatsapp/Telegram/Email/Twitter/? Or is it watching the latest episode of Obi-Wan Garbage on Disney+?

The reality is that the type of thing that people do in places where public wifi is available is the type of thing that mobile data is cheap enough for.
Click to expand...
Mobile data don't always pick up signal in malls or it reverts to a slow 3g.
 
I only use free WiFi when abroad, and then I still use a fake email account so that they can spam the shite out it instead of my inbox.

In SA I have no use for it, I have mobile data
 
I never ever use free public WIFI. I've got more mobile data than I could ever use because I work from home and am always on my home fibre network, so when I do leave the house, looking for free WIFI doesn't even occur to me. When I'm overseas I just pop a local sim card into the second sim slot of my phone and buy cheap prepaid data and I'm sorted for the whole trip.
 
Wifi APs are able to authenticate users by their SIM card. Jumping onto a wifi network could be as easy as selecting "Vodacom" or "MTN" from the list of access points, letting them authenticate your SIM against their subscriber databases, and offering it either for free or deducting data/airtime from your mobile account at some reduced price. No separate logins and privacy headaches, no entering credit card details, etc.

Haven't a clue why none of them implemented this.
 
grca said:
Wifi APs are able to authenticate users by their SIM card. Jumping onto a wifi network could be as easy as selecting "Vodacom" or "MTN" from the list of access points, letting them authenticate your SIM against their subscriber databases, and offering it either for free or deducting data/airtime from your mobile account at some reduced price. No separate logins and privacy headaches, no entering credit card details, etc.

Haven't a clue why none of them implemented this.
Click to expand...
Why would they want subscribers to spend less time using mobile data that is more profitable?
 
Jan said:
South Africans would rather pay for mobile data than use public Wi-Fi

Commercial Wi-Fi services launched in South Africa, such as those from Telkom, Mweb, and VAST Networks, ultimately fail, primarily due to improved mobile data speeds and missed opportunities.

MyBroadband spoke to Vox Telecoms' Wi-Fi product manager, Craig Blignaut, to find out why such services failed.
Click to expand...
Nevermind that these public commercial Wi-Fi services are free but are unreliable the main point you seem to be missing is that one could be wide open to hackers and scammers. For example no one in their right mind would even think of doing their on-line banking using these services. That's a recipe for disaster.
 
Next weeks post, “Don’t use public WiFi, this is why”
 
Registering via captive portal, low bandwidth, ridiculous caps. Nope.

Occasionally a venue simply has an SSID and password. That is good for me. Mostly I don't even bother though.
 
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