Free ADSL with Wi-Fi hotspot access coming to South Africa

AlwaysOn plans to offer a Wi-Fi bundled ADSL product, or as it calls it: free ADSL bundled with its Wi-Fi accounts.

This is according to Hayden Lamberti, the managing director of AlwaysOn.

“We’re bringing AlwaysOn to the home, but in a different way. Not using a typical FON model,” said Lamberti, at Satnac 2015.

FON operates a network of dual-access wireless networks through which members share part of their bandwidth via a publicly-available Wi-Fi access point in exchange for the ability to connect to other members’ hotspots.

MWEB Connect offers FON’s services in South Africa.

Lamberti said they have big plans for their drive to get into homes, but in the meantime they are going to market with DSL and Wi-Fi bundles.

He said that, in theory, resellers will get access to the bundles – which will be aimed at subscribers who want a lot of bandwidth.

The aim is not to compete directly in the ADSL Internet service provider space, as it is a well-established market in SA.

Instead, Lamberti said he wants to keep Wi-Fi as the main event at AlwaysOn, and that these bundles will be Wi-Fi packages with DSL value-added services bolted on.

“My fundamental belief is that the Internet market is going to be about the home. In order to be in the home, you have to add value to the home.”

Jan Vermeulen is a guest of Telkom at Satnac 2015.

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