To ensure uptake and a positive impact, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) networks in cities must be provided at schools, community centres and commercial centres to enable citizens and government to access information that will improve access to and delivery of services.

This community-centric model of rolling out Wi-Fi networks in cities is important to ensure that services are available and used by citizens and local private businesses. This, in turn, will generate data that government can use to determine policy and interact with citizens, says Wi-Fi specialists Ruckus Wireless sub-Saharan Africa sales director Michael Fletcher.

The real-time information available to government when citizens use publicly funded Wi-Fi networks will enable it to respond quickly to concerns raised by citizens and manage public events, as well as analyse data to determine the effectiveness of policies and identify areas of underperformance.

Further, free Wi-Fi projects – such as Project Isizwe, a national initiative that aims to provide citizens with 250 MB of data free of charge – will enable citizens to interact more easily with a city’s government and access information on jobs and educational materials.

While Wi-Fi cannot cover all population centres, owing to range constraints, the fact that it is unregulated means that more connection points can be added to extend coverage or increase the bandwidth available at a hot spot to enable communication such as during large-scale events.

Ruckus’ experience of working in countries, such as Rwanda, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Tanzania, indicate a high rate of entrepreneurship stemming from such community-centric Wi-Fi networks, as local businesses and entrepreneurs leverage the connectivity to offer services or products.

Further, Fletcher says Wi-Fi networks are often quickly monetised, as private businesses can, for example, offer the city’s free Wi-Fi on their premises. This, in turn, will boost customer numbers and enable businesses to advertise their services or products to Wi-Fi users on their premises, reducing the costs to the city.

Ruckus has found that Wi-Fi networks also lead to technical entrepreneurship and have found that small businesses build antennas to extend the coverage of the free networks to their premises and, thus, either attract customers or deliver their services over these networks.