{"id":577237,"date":"2025-01-07T16:55:01","date_gmt":"2025-01-07T14:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=577237"},"modified":"2025-01-07T16:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-01-07T14:55:09","slug":"durban-free-beachfront-wi-fi-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/577237-durban-free-beachfront-wi-fi-lie.html","title":{"rendered":"Durban free beachfront Wi-Fi lie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The eThekwini Municipality rolled out 14 Wi-Fi hotspots along the Durban beachfront between April 2021 and June 2022, but recent testing in the area revealed that the network no longer exists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I walked the Durban beachfront several times over the December 2024 holidays. I could not find the “eThekwini Wi-Fi” network at any location along the promenade, even when trying to connect at the site of signs advertising the service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While several Wi-Fi networks from surrounding restaurants and businesses were visible, the free public Wi-Fi network was nowhere to be found at several points along the beachfront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In April 2024, the municipality announced that it had rolled out 1,031 free Wi-Fi access points across the region, including several along the Durban beachfront.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Moving towards its goal of becoming a Smart City, eThekwini Municipality has 1,031 free Wi-Fi locations available to meet your cyber needs for work, school, or job hunting,” the municipality said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, subsequent comments on the page suggest that the free Wi-Fi hotspots are outdated, which could indicate a lack of maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Ubani (who is<\/em>) the service provider of the eThekwini Wi-Fi? This Wi-Fi is like it was installed and left like that. When you log in, it shows 2020 information,” one user posted<\/a> on the eThekwini Municipality Facebook page in June 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The user said this was related to a hotspot along the beachfront near the Addington Hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To its credit, the eThekwini Municipality responded promptly, saying it would escalate the issue to the relevant department. However, this hotspot wasn’t working when I tried to connect in December 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The initiative, launched in 2017, aims to provide the municipality’s residents and visitors with 500MB of free daily Wi-Fi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It followed a three-phased approach to roll out the public Wi-Fi hotspots, with the pilot phase running until the end of 2017. According to eThekwini’s data, 109 access points were installed during this period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The “eThekwini Wi-Fi” network wasn’t available at any point along the Durban beachfront promenade, marked in red<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These were established at various public sites, including schools, libraries, clinics, markets, hostels, and museums. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The municipality deployed the hotspots using equipment from various manufacturers, including Huawei, Cisco, Altai, and Rukus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, the eThekwini Municipality established 240 more Wi-Fi access points at public sites across the municipality, also including clinics, libraries, and hostels, as well as parks like the Durban Botanical Gardens and museums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During this phase, it shifted its approach to the networking equipment it used, with most access points using Huawei equipment and just two using Cisco equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rollout of free Wi-Fi access points accelerated in 2020, with 374 new access points added to the roster. In 2020, the eThekwini Municipality exclusively used Huawei networking equipment for its installations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Durban local government rolled out 100 more access points across 39 sites in 2021, bringing its total to 823 free Wi-Fi access points as of May 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has installed more access points in the years that followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The city has installed free Wi-Fi hotspots in Warwick Junction, Florida Road and the beachfront in keeping with plans to promote Durban as a smart city with access to the digital world,” the eThekwini Municipality announced<\/a> in June 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is an extension to the more than 1000 sites already in place at our libraries, Sizakala Centres, community halls, clinics and other places. The rollout of free Wi-Fi will continue in other areas.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durban has been rolling out free Wi-Fi hotspots since 2017, but its beachfront access points were unavailable in December 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":577260,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[96526,98324,87501,24124,21661,1982,27533],"class_list":["post-577237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-durban-2","tag-durban-beachfront","tag-ethekwini","tag-ethekwini-municipality","tag-free-wi-fi","tag-huawei","tag-wi-fi-hotspot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577237"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":577289,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577237\/revisions\/577289"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577260"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}