South African part state-owned telecommunications firm Telkom has plans to roll out Wi-Fi enabled payphones in the future in an attempt to provide connectivity to the majority of South Africans.
Telkom chief marketing officer (CMO) Enzo Scarcella announced the plans while speaking on the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s Morning Live show.
“In 1994 probably only 15 per cent of South Africans had access to telephony. So payphones are fairly prevalent,” said Scarcella, though he added the uptake of mobile phones, with current penetration sitting at 120 per cent, meant payphones are no longer used.
“So the idea, which is in its infancy, is to say we’ve got the infrastructure, we’ve got cables going to that payphone… and the idea is how can we turn those payphones into data Wi-Fi hotspots,” Scarcella said.
He said there are currently around 20,000 payphones around the country that could be used as hotspots.
“They tend to be in previously disadvantaged areas where there was very little telephone availability,” he said.
The proposed payphone hotspots will provide connectivity within a 10 metre radius.
Scarcella said Telkom plans to provide the data for free but how it would be funded is currently being investigated.
He gave no indication as to when the rollout would occur.
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