Alex is now ‘Konected’ with free WiFi at the Pan African Taxi Rank

The impoverished community of the township of Alexandra has been uplifted by being provided a free WiFi service at the Pan African Taxi Rank near the Pan African Mall.

This is courtesy of Konecta, a Sandton-based ICT company that specialises in building wireless network connectivity platforms using WiFi.

The company said the advent of Covid-19 pandemic had forced everyone into the online world, and internet consumption had risen tremendously since the first lockdown announcement, leaving poor and marginalised communities struggling to decide to buy a loaf of bread or opting for data.

Company founder Yandisa Sokhanyile described internet connectivity as no longer a value added service but a necessity and a means to an end for everybody worldwide, rich or poor.
To curb the problem of the high cost of data, Sokhanyile said her 100 per cent black-owned company decided to deploy free WiFi services at the taxi rank to alleviate the burden on the community of Alexandra.

She said the WiFi was rolled out during Level 3 of the lockdown and was officially opened during Level 2.
In the past two months, Sokhanyile said more than 21 000 connections have been recorded on the connectivity platform in which taxi commuters and shoppers have free access to 1GB daily.

“WiFi is a necessity especially in the transport hubs,” she added. “Commuters wait for close to an hour sometimes before starting their journey, and this is valuable time they can use to catch up on assignments, search for jobs and other opportunities, do research and so forth.

“This helps to ease the waiting period as they can actually become productive. Our platform will also help the taxi associations to communicate directly with the commuters and send out any notifications.”She said the project was currently in phase 1 of its development and more installations would take place in the coming months to cover taxi ranks in other parts of the township and other areas as well.