Cape Town achieves Fibre Optics Milestone

The Mother City reaches its 800km mark

Last Update 21 February 2017

The City of Cape Town has announced that its fibre-optic cable network has reached a 848 km mark, which means that more than a million people are connected to the internet. After several years of construction and excavations the internet infrastructures upgrade seems to be showing favourable results.

The cabling has empowered homes and business as well as making it possible to create public Wi-Fi zones. The cables have the capacity to connect the City’s buildings, as well as bus stations, cameras and other infrastructure that is vital for service delivery.

In addition to libraries having public Wi-fi available, fibre now connects 61 of the City’s clinics and 378 other buildings, including 61 privately owned office buildings. The City of Cape Town has stated that over a million people currently make use of the free wireless public internet. Library members are now also able to connect their mobile devices to the service.

According to the city there are over 200 000 unique users who connect to the internet every month using one of these Wi-Fi zones. Each person is able to use up to 100 MB of data each day for free.

The City’s Mayoral Committee Member for Corporate Services, Councillor Raelene Arendse has stated that they, “are committed to upping the ante in terms of basic service delivery [because] the digital age presents enormous opportunities for the development of individuals and communities to improve their  quality of life”. Councillor Arense has made it clear they are of the view that digital access is a basic service and thus committed to its continued improvement as part of their service delivery standard.

By Tarina Meiring

Source: City of Cape Town

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Interested in where you can find a Wi-Fi hotspot near you have a look at our Wi-Fi overview or if you find yourself atop Table Mountain, take a look at the Wi-Fi Lounge incase you need to upload great pics instantly! 

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The Mother City is reaching milestones regularly, so take a look at how it was announced the e-commerce hub of South Africa. 

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