Free Wi-Fi bonanza for BCM
Hotspots in city to cater for areas with high human traffic, students
FREE Wi-Fi is being rolled out in Buffalo City Metro. After much talk of turning the metro into a “smart city”, the Daily Dispatch can today confirm that the first three free Wi-Fi hotspots are up and running, with 25 hotspots due to be activated by the end of next week.
A further 60 hotspots are planned to become available by the end of February next year.
By the end of this R20-million project BCM – from Leaches Bay to the city centre and including King William’s Town and Mdantsane – will have a number of free Wi-Fi access points.
The access points will be located in either a municipal building or the city’s security cameras.
Accompanied by BCM ICT manager Jongikhaya Stuurman this week, the Dispatch tested a number of the hotspots, which are placed at strategic points across the city – on the corner of Oxford Street and Connaught Avenue; the corner of Oxford and Caxton streets; and just outside the new ICT centre in Gompo, on Douglas Smith Road in Duncan Village.
A fourth hotspot, located near the circle in front of Frere Hospital, where Lennox Road joins Amalinda Main Road, should have been up and running, but it is temporarily inactive having been struck by lightning.
Stuurman said these Wi-Fi access points had been piloted earlier this year, and once a suitable public user authentication method was identified, rollout had begun.
Once in a Wi-Fi hotspot, users can find “BCMM Wi-Fi” under Wi-Fi in their phone settings.
They can then follow the prompts on the portal page to connect.
Users will have to register by giving their name and cellphone number.
Upon registering successfully, an SMS is then issued to the user with a one-time only activation code which consists of letters and numbers. This will allow users to access any BCM hotspot in the future.
When the Daily Dispatch reporter logged in successfully, a pop-up timer appeared counting down a nine-hour timeframe.
Stuurman explained this was the amount of time each user is given with 250MB of data each day, at a speed connection of between two and four megabytes per second.
“We are incorporating the hotspots onto some of the [security] cameras [BCM has] installed throughout the city through the fibre cables we have installed in the metro. The multimillion-rand project of fibre operations began late last year and extends from the Munifin Building [in the city centre] to the BCM finance directorate in Arcadia, through to our supply chain management in Chiselhurst, among others, to integrate all the BCM departments,” he said.
Stuurman said they had earmarked central points for Wi-Fi access near student accommodation, as well as institutions of higher learning and areas where there are large volumes of human traffic.
“There’s a Wi-Fi spot near Steers at the corner of Oxford and Caxton because of the taxi operations in the vicinity [for waiting commuters].”
Others will be available north of Oxford Street in front of Forbes Pharmacy and at the BP garage, and in St Johns Road to accommodate students living there. —