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Free TshWi-Fi powered by the City of Tshwane
This is Tshwane's free Wi-Fi service, providing free internet across more than 780 TshWi-Fi internet zones in Tshwane – including open public spaces, educational institutions, schools, clinics and libraries. Users can enjoy free internet access with 500 MB free data

every day while also being able to make free calls, enjoying free chat and free movie streaming.

Since the inception of the TshWi-Fi project, more than 1,6 million unique devices have accessed the network, making it the largest Wi-Fi network on the African continent (BMI-T). The progress on this project has been narrowing the digital divide and inequality amongst Tshwane residents whilst connecting, entertaining, educating and empowering them.

The project initially started with a daily cap of 250 MB and a connection speed of 1 mbps. It has since increased significantly to a daily cap of 500 MB and an average speed of 15 mbps. The project received the UN-Habitat Award for outstanding contribution towards improving the liveability of cities, as well as AfriCom Conference Awards for the Best Connectivity Solution for Africa and the Best App for Africa in relation to the Free TshWi-Fi Voice Mobile App.

TshWi-Fi is made possible through collaboration with Project Isizwe, a non-profit global movement that aims to provide free internet to Africa. Looking forward, the City of Tshwane will double the size of its TshWi-Fi network, ensuring that more than 50% of its citizens are within walking distance of a TshWi-Fi zone. Furthermore, the City will roll out 1 500 km of broadband fibre across Tshwane to deliver additional e-services to residents. The broadband network will also facilitate the TshWi-Fi project, enabling the City to reach locations that have a severe lack of telecommunications infrastructure.

Project Isizwe
In 2013, Project Isizwe as a non-profit organization pioneered the blueprint of how free public WiFi can be deployed in a way that is sustainable.

The project was approved by the City of Tshwane’s Council under the Municipal FinanceManagement Act (MFMA) and funded under a grant due to the organisation’s non-for-profit status.

This was also the first time such an initiative was to be rolled out on the African continent. In 2013, five free public-access WiFi hotspots were rolled out as part of the TSHWI-FI initiative, which later expanded to 15, 250 and ultimately 1050 throughout the City by 2018.

Project Isizwe connected over 3 500 000 unique users in the Capital City since November 2013, logging over 276 Million sessions.

We also developed a content portal, called Tobetsa, which is designed to give users access to uncapped curated content.

This content is focused on education, skills development and employment, and gave local communities the power to access information, education and jobs online, empowering them to participate in the mainstream economy like never before.

During Isizwe’s partnership with the City of Tshwane, our initiative delivered 500 TB (1000GB = 1TB) of data a month.

To buy this amount of data as pre-paid data would cost about an average of R300 per 1 GB.

This implies that Project Isizwe’s flagship Free WiFi project with the City of Tshwane saved residents up to R150 million per month during the duration of the initiative.

The project concluded in June 2018.

Awards
The project received the UN-Habitat Award for outstanding contribution towards improving the liveability of cities, as well as AfriCom Conference Awards for the Best Connectivity Solution for Africa and the Best App for Africa in relation to the Free TshWi-Fi Voice Mobile App. World Habitat Awards

World Habitat Awards recognise and highlight innovative, outstanding and sometimes revolutionary housing ideas, projects and programmes from across the world.

More than 250 outstanding World Habitat Awards projects have been recognised over the years, demonstrating substantial, lasting improvements in living conditions. Each year two winners receive £10,000 each and a trophy, presented at a global UN-Habita t event.

UN-Habitat

UN-Habitat envisions well-planned, well-governed, and efficient cities and other human settlements, with adequate housing, infrastructure, and universal access to employment and basic services such as water, energy, and sanitation. To achieve these goals, derived from the Habitat Agenda of 1996, UN-Habitat has set itself a medium-term strategy approach for each successive six-year period. The current strategic plan spans from 2014 to 2019. While every new strategic plan is in continuity with the previous one, this approach allows for a better response to emerging urban trends such as new demographic, environmental, economic, spatial, and social developments. It        permits necessary readjustments to address change and evolutions and creates opportunities to incorporate lessons learned.

AfriCom Conference Awards

The Awards recognise the achievements of the best companies, solutions, products and personalities improving connectivity and driving Africa through the fourth industrial revolution.

City of Tshwane
City of Tshwane is classified as a Category A Grade 6 urban municipality by the Municipal Demarcation Board in terms of section 4 of the Local Government Municipal Structures Act, 1998 (Act 117 of 1998). The Municipality was established on 5 December 2000 through the integration of various municipalities and councils that had previously served the greater Pretoria regime and surrounding areas.

On 28 May 2008, a proclamation through the Government Gazette was made to incorporate the former Metsweding District Municipality, including Dinokeng tsa Taemane (Cullinan) and Kungwini (Bronkhorstspruit) into the borders of City of Tshwane. The incorporation, which gave birth to the new City of Tshwane in May 2011 after the local government elections, was in line with the Gauteng Global City Region Strategy to reduce the number of municipalities in Gauteng by the year 2016.

The new City of Tshwane which has a Mayoral Executive System combined with a ward participatory system in accordance with section 2 (g) of the Determination of Types of Municipality Act, 2000 (Act 1 of 2000), and section 2(1) (c) (vii) of the North-West Municipal Structures Act, 2000 (Act 3 of 2000); it has 105 wards, 210 councillors and about 2,5 million residents, and is divided into seven regions. It covers 6 368km² of Gauteng's 19 055km² and stretches almost 121 km from east to west and 108 km from north to south making it the third-largest city in the world in terms of land area, after New York and Tokyo/Yokohama.

As the administrative seat of Government and hosting a number of Embassies, City of Tshwane has proven to be a leader on the African continent in providing affordable industrial sites, various industries, office space, education and research facilities.

An estimated 90% of all research and development in South Africa is conducted here by institutions such as Armscor, the Medical Research Council, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the Human Sciences Research Council and educational institutions such as the University of South Africa and Tshwane University of Technology.

The City’s principle economic sectors include: services: 70%, commerce: 13%, industry 21% and other: 2 %. The City’s Growth and Development strategy, aims to:


 * accelerate growth,
 * contribute towards the provincial economic growth target of 9%;
 * reduce unemployment by 50% by the year 2014;
 * create an environment that will ensure a more balanced sharing of benefits between the first and second economies;
 * address gender focused issues in the economy by dealing with the inequalities and mainstreaming women, youth and the disabled; and develop a monitoring mechanism to evaluate projects.

In line with these efforts, Tshwane’s 5-Year plan of action is to develop Tshwane into a leading city where residents can enjoy a good quality of life. The five-year programme focuses on the challenges and opportunities faced by the city and have five strategic objectives:


 * To provide access to quality basic services and infrastructure throughout the city; Accelerate shared and higher local economic growth and development;
 * Fight poverty and ensure clean, healthy, safe, secure and sustainable communities;
 * Foster participatory democracy and apply the Batho Pele principles through a caring, accessible and accountable service; and
 * Ensure good governance and financial viability, building institutional capacity and optimising transformation in order to execute the Municipality's mandate