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The eThekwini Municipality is SA's second-largest economy after Johannesburg, and is home to 3.5-million people. In this thriving city, high data costs prevent most residents from accessing the world wide web.
To remedy this, eThekwini government has launched a three-year public Wi-Fi construction plan to provide convenient and free internet to the public.
In the next three years, about 450 public Wi-Fi hotspots will be available in eThekwini, covering 96 public libraries, the Moses Mabhida Stadium, and tourism and business centres, including aquariums, seafronts and uShaka Marine World.
"The public Wi-Fi solution will help address the inequality issue caused by high data costs. As an important part of our smart city strategy, we'd like to see more people enjoying free and high-quality Wi-Fi and information services brought by the digital world," says Immanuel Pillay, the municipal government IP senior manager.
"For example, with free Wi-Fi, more and more young people can apply for jobs online. This will raise employment and boost economic development and social stability. Public Wi-Fi will also allow more people access educational resources, which is conducive to the development of education."
Due to the large population flow, public places are likely to see uneven per capita bandwidth allocation and unguaranteed Service Level Agreements, resulting in poor Wi-Fi experience. Frequent use of mobile devices also poses greater challenges to roaming. These factors bring more challenges to building a public Wi-Fi network. To overcome these challenges, the eThekwini municipal government chose to partner with Huawei to advance its free public Wi-Fi construction plan.
Huawei's 5G-powered Wi-Fi 6 antenna technology improves the throughput of the entire network by more than 20% and enables eThekwini citizens to use bandwidth-demanding applications such as 4K and VR smoothly. The 5G-born innovative radio algorithm in Huawei Wi-Fi 6 ensures service continuity with no packet loss during terminal roaming, guaranteeing a smooth Internet experience for all kinds of situations, such as web page browsing, video playing, and picture downloading.
Huawei Wi-Fi 6 supports Radius authentication, which effectively controls user access. During the pandemic, the municipal government shared prevention precautions to the public on captive portals through public Wi-Fi.
The eThekwini government does not only focus on improving the lives of its residents but also hopes to enhance the internet access experience of tourists. It is committed to marketing itself as a must-visit destination for domestic and international tourists, boosting economic development and employment. Therefore, stable Wi-Fi coverage is required in outdoor tourist attractions such as plazas and seafronts but is let down by a lack of poles or even optical fibers or power supply in such areas, making it difficult to install APs.
This is where Huawei's PowerCube 500 Solution can come into play. It provides outdoor integrated cabinets featuring a modular design for power supply and network and integrating multiple functions. This solution ensures compact, one-stop, and flexible configuration, greatly simplifying AP deployment in outdoor scenarios, reducing AP deployment costs, and ensuring pervasive Wi-Fi 6 coverage.
"Before the plan was launched, there was only legacy indoor wireless available in our libraries. This was expanded to a few more sites to test the viability of installing the service on outdoor areas to give access to disadvantaged communities. There were a number of challenges during our proof of concept deployment such as: availability of power, safe areas to deploy the AP’s, network connectivity of the site back to a network point of presence, and maintenance of equipment.
“We were worried about these challenges in deployment of Wi-Fi networks. Through an open procurement process, Huawei was chosen as our technology partner for the next three years, and has shown itself to be a reliable partner. Its world-class Wi-Fi 6 products, mature campus solutions, and flexible, efficient processes helps us build free public Wi-Fi networks," says Pillay.
Huawei's Wi-Fi 6 has been applied in more than 800 commercial projects worldwide, and has the largest market share globally (excluding the North American market), according to a report on the global Wi-Fi 6 indoor AP market share by Dell'Oro Group. Together with local communities, Huawei will continue to bring digital to every person, home, and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
eThekwini pioneers a smart city with free public Wi-Fi
Huawei's 5G-powered Wi-Fi 6 delivers unprecedented network experience
The eThekwini Municipality is SA's second-largest economy after Johannesburg, and is home to 3.5-million people. In this thriving city, high data costs prevent most residents from accessing the world wide web.
To remedy this, eThekwini government has launched a three-year public Wi-Fi construction plan to provide convenient and free internet to the public.
In the next three years, about 450 public Wi-Fi hotspots will be available in eThekwini, covering 96 public libraries, the Moses Mabhida Stadium, and tourism and business centres, including aquariums, seafronts and uShaka Marine World.
"The public Wi-Fi solution will help address the inequality issue caused by high data costs. As an important part of our smart city strategy, we'd like to see more people enjoying free and high-quality Wi-Fi and information services brought by the digital world," says Immanuel Pillay, the municipal government IP senior manager.
"For example, with free Wi-Fi, more and more young people can apply for jobs online. This will raise employment and boost economic development and social stability. Public Wi-Fi will also allow more people access educational resources, which is conducive to the development of education."
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Huawei's 5G-powered Wi-Fi 6 delivers unprecedented network experience
Due to the large population flow, public places are likely to see uneven per capita bandwidth allocation and unguaranteed Service Level Agreements, resulting in poor Wi-Fi experience. Frequent use of mobile devices also poses greater challenges to roaming. These factors bring more challenges to building a public Wi-Fi network. To overcome these challenges, the eThekwini municipal government chose to partner with Huawei to advance its free public Wi-Fi construction plan.
Huawei's 5G-powered Wi-Fi 6 antenna technology improves the throughput of the entire network by more than 20% and enables eThekwini citizens to use bandwidth-demanding applications such as 4K and VR smoothly. The 5G-born innovative radio algorithm in Huawei Wi-Fi 6 ensures service continuity with no packet loss during terminal roaming, guaranteeing a smooth Internet experience for all kinds of situations, such as web page browsing, video playing, and picture downloading.
Huawei Wi-Fi 6 supports Radius authentication, which effectively controls user access. During the pandemic, the municipal government shared prevention precautions to the public on captive portals through public Wi-Fi.
Huawei's One-Stop PowerCube 500 Solution guarantees pervasive outdoor Wi-Fi 6 coverage
The eThekwini government does not only focus on improving the lives of its residents but also hopes to enhance the internet access experience of tourists. It is committed to marketing itself as a must-visit destination for domestic and international tourists, boosting economic development and employment. Therefore, stable Wi-Fi coverage is required in outdoor tourist attractions such as plazas and seafronts but is let down by a lack of poles or even optical fibers or power supply in such areas, making it difficult to install APs.
This is where Huawei's PowerCube 500 Solution can come into play. It provides outdoor integrated cabinets featuring a modular design for power supply and network and integrating multiple functions. This solution ensures compact, one-stop, and flexible configuration, greatly simplifying AP deployment in outdoor scenarios, reducing AP deployment costs, and ensuring pervasive Wi-Fi 6 coverage.
"Before the plan was launched, there was only legacy indoor wireless available in our libraries. This was expanded to a few more sites to test the viability of installing the service on outdoor areas to give access to disadvantaged communities. There were a number of challenges during our proof of concept deployment such as: availability of power, safe areas to deploy the AP’s, network connectivity of the site back to a network point of presence, and maintenance of equipment.
“We were worried about these challenges in deployment of Wi-Fi networks. Through an open procurement process, Huawei was chosen as our technology partner for the next three years, and has shown itself to be a reliable partner. Its world-class Wi-Fi 6 products, mature campus solutions, and flexible, efficient processes helps us build free public Wi-Fi networks," says Pillay.
Huawei's Wi-Fi 6 has been applied in more than 800 commercial projects worldwide, and has the largest market share globally (excluding the North American market), according to a report on the global Wi-Fi 6 indoor AP market share by Dell'Oro Group. Together with local communities, Huawei will continue to bring digital to every person, home, and organisation for a fully connected, intelligent world.
Learn more about Huawei's Enterprise Networking at the Huawei Tech Summit on March 17 2021.
This article was paid for by Huawei Enterprises.
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Published by Arena Holdings and distributed with the Financial Mail on the last Thursday of every month except December and January.