Isizwe, an internet service provider, that offers online access to low-income communities, has launched a prepaid and low-cost fiber project in South African township Kayamandi in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape.
The Fibre network which went live on the 7th November 2022, currently connects 3,000 homes to uncapped prepaid fiber at a cost of just R5 (US$0.28) per day with Internet speeds of more than 100 Mbit/s. The company now wants to extend the network to 30,000 homes in Kayamandi and beyond.
“We’re already working on plans to penetrate the metropolitan conurbation stretching from Lagos to Accra. The truth is that most of world is more like South Africa than it is like OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries like England. Which means solutions that work in South Africa are more applicable to the world than solutions that work in England,” said Alan Knott-Craig Jr, chairman of Isizwe and the founder of nonprofit sister company Project Isizwe.
The journey to the Kayamandi Fibre Project first started when Steve Briggs, Chief Executive Officer at Isizwe asked why hasn’t uncapped fibre been made available in townships. This was the motivation behind the CEO’s first company Vulacoin, a blockchain wallet linking real-world currency to time, a stablecoin.
The overall vision was to create a profitable way for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to sell small chunks of internet time to consumers. This led to PayGoZo, a subsidiary of Isizwe that allows users to subscribe for internet access, on a pay-as-you-go basis, as the company positioned itself to sell uncapped fibre in bite-size chunks in townships.
Because it is an audacious project, Isizwe is asking that individuals and companies partner with it so “an enormous economic and social opportunity” will be unlocked by providing affordable uncapped fibre in townships.
“If you are a domain expert on safety, or any other application that you think would be enabled by affordable uncapped fibre in townships, please contact us at info@isizwe.com”
Over 90% of homes in Africa only have mobile data as the way of connecting to the internet and Isizwe has been on the forefront of offering unlimited Wi-Fi access in townships and informal settlements on a low-cost, pay-per-use basis.
Since pivoting to this approach in 2020, Isizwe has set up 80 Wi-Fi Zones, including zones for an education group working to facilitate remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it anticipates the rollout of more than 25,000 Wi-Fi Zones in South Africa by 2022.
