{"id":650697,"date":"2026-05-31T14:03:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:03:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=650697"},"modified":"2026-05-31T14:07:01","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T12:07:01","slug":"gauteng-spending-r241-million-to-roll-out-160-internet-sites-and-80-wi-fi-hotspots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/650697-gauteng-spending-r241-million-to-roll-out-160-internet-sites-and-80-wi-fi-hotspots.html","title":{"rendered":"Gauteng spending R241 million to roll out 160 Internet sites and 80 Wi-Fi hotspots"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Gauteng Department of e-Government announced that it will spend R241 million in the 2026\/27 financial year on the expansion of its public Internet network in the province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A further combined 160 WAN and LAN sites, and 80 more Wi-Fi hotspots are planned to be added in the financial year, bolstering the province\u2019s existing network capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to an e-Government announcement, Gauteng now has 130 public Wi-Fi hotspots, adding 15 new sites between February 2026 and May 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added 44 new WAN sites during the period and 30 new LAN sites, bringing the combined total to 1,770 as of May 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of these sites, four can provide Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), the department said. It said the rollout of new sites and other projects in the 2025\/26 financial year was an improvement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe department achieved 32 of its 38 planned targets, representing an overall performance rate of 84%,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department recently presented its fourth-quarter performance report to members of the Gauteng Legislature\u2019s e-Government Research and Development Committee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bonginkosi Dhlamini, MEC for e-Government said that one of the department’s notable achievements in recent years has been its investment in digital infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe expansion of high-speed broadband networks across government offices and public facilities has enabled greater connectivity and the adoption of new technologies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis robust and scalable infrastructure underpins our digital transformation journey and supports initiatives such as cloud computing, centralised data centres, and secure communication platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department shared that it has invested R241 million in the 2026\/27 financial year to mitigate its ageing infrastructure and strengthen existing ICT infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It confirmed to MyBroadband that part of this strengthening included the rollout of new WAN, LAN and Wi-Fi sites in the province.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This included targeting 160 more WAN and LAN sites, with the department combining both into a single amount and 80 more Wi-Fi hotspots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No more new CCTV cameras for Gauteng in the 2026\/27 financial year<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
Free Wi-Fi zone infrastructure in Tshwane<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The addition of the new sites in the 2025\/26 financial year showed marginal improvement compared to the department\u2019s performance as noted in early 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From March 2025 to October 2025, the number of government Wi-Fi hotspots in Gauteng had shrunk<\/a> to 115, while WAN sites decreased to 1,311.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The largest decrease was for LAN sites in the province maintained by e-Government, which decreased by 352 to 385 as of October 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These figures were revealed in the department\u2019s budget speech in July 2025, where Dhlamini indicated that less than half of its targets were reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its latest report, the department also indicated that it was not planning to install any new CCTV camera sites for the 2026\/2027 financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department said its role was to provide the technology platform that supported the sites, but the expansion itself was the role of the Gauteng Department of Community Safety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During May 2026, the Democratic Alliance (DA) revealed that the rollout of CCTV cameras across Gauteng had cost the province R124 million since the network\u2019s inception<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also revealed that around 269 of the province\u2019s cameras were offline as of 15 May 2026, which amounted to 28% of the network being out of commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis comes at a time when residents are in dire need for crime prevention measures,\u201d the political party said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis province cannot afford a CCTV system where such a significant portion of the network is offline.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, Dhlamini indicated that the offline cameras were due to water-damaged batteries, vandalism and faulty inverters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DA said that maintenance costs for the province’s CCTV network had already exceeded R5.1 million, with an annual operating cost of between R12 million and R15 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

E-Government responded to the DA and said that the overwhelming majority of the CCTV cameras in the province remain operational, with a total amount of 960 cameras installed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gauteng has announced that it will spend R241 million in the 2026\/27 financial year on 160 new Internet sites and 80 more Wi-Fi hotspots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":647765,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18668],"tags":[98100,8693,105584,105585,749,27533],"class_list":["post-650697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-bonginkosi-dhlamini","tag-democratic-alliance","tag-department-of-e-government","tag-voice-over-internet-protocol","tag-wi-fi","tag-wi-fi-hotspot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650697"}],"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\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650697"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651057,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650697\/revisions\/651057"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}