Eastern Cape Village Built Its Own Solar-Powered Public Wi-Fi For Internet Access In A 30 Km Area

Mankosi is a remote rural area in South Africa's Eastern Cape province. The village barely holds about 6,000 people, with the nearest city about 60km away. The community is living without amenities we've gotten used to in cities.

And yet, they have public Wi-Fi. How did they manage that?

You see, Mankosi is one of the poorer villages in South Africa, and there are many just like it. Most of the homes in the village aren't even connected to the electricity grid. Instead, people have battery-operated devices, which they charge alongside their phones at the local shebeen (shop or tavern), for a fee. On top of that, the prices for Internet data in the country are ridiculous, with people reportedly spending up to 22 percent of their monthly income on it, instead of things like food, education, and transport. It's necessary but so wasteful.

However, Mankosi has managed to turn its fortune around somewhat. In 2012, the village partnered with a research team at the University of the Western Cape. The aim was to experiment with creating a model for bottom-up village telcos, ones that would be cheaper for rural communities, as well as sustainable. And Mankosi is now successfully demonstrating that this system works.

It's called the Zenzeleni Networks project, which translates to "do it yourself" in isiXhosa, a prevalent local language. It's officially an Internet Service Provider (ISP), except it's the first one in South Africa run by a local cooperative. Zenzeleni is a solar-powered, community-owned Wifi telecommunications network solution providing affordable communications to remote rural areas. Through the use of wireless mesh networking, users can make free internal voice over IP calls, while the cost of breakout mobile calls and data is greatly reduced. The network consists of scattered nodes powered through easy-to-install, modular solar systems. Communities can charge mobile devices and provide lighting from these nodes.

Because Zenzeleni is a not-for-profit company, this makes Internet services much more affordable for people in the area, and it is also providing additional employment for the local community.

Bill Tucker, a Professor of Computer Science at the University of the Western Cape, and someone that worked on the Zenzeleni project elaborates in a piece he wrote online. "To establish the Zenzeleni network we approached local leaders to help get the community on board and we provided help and mentorship. Ultimately the residents run the project themselves."

The network offers users Internet access and even VoIP at cheaper rates than the national average, through a billing system overseen by the cooperative that keeps it fair and non-exploitative. Because they managed to obtain an exemption on fees from the national ISP licensing body, Zenzeleni can afford to operate their networks at low costs, keeping their services cheap.

Across the network are multiple access points called "points of presence" (POP), where even a budget smartphone can pick up the signal to access the Internet. People can also connect directly to the solar-powered stations to charge their phone batteries at a fraction of the price.

Normal voice calls in South Africa cost about Rs 7.10 per minute. Zenzeleni however can offer them at Rs 0.95 a minute. Data charges are similarly about 20 to 40 times cheaper.

Because this is also a community project, it means Zenzeleni won't up prices to expand. The community leaders, and therefore the community, decide how the money paid for the telco's services is to be spent, whether that's on local infrastructure or something else to benefit everyone. For instance, Tucker indicates the community has used the revenue to set up a micro-loan service for residents starting small businesses.

But expansion is on the menu, and very much within reach. The next step, Tucker indicates, is for Zenzeleni Networks to provide its services to between 20 to 30 other communities around Mankosi. 300,000 people will be allowed access to cheaper, sustainable Internet connectivity if that happens. And that will benefit everything from schools, hospitals, farmers, and even individuals.