The metro has blamed ongoing Tshwane free Wi-Fi outages on vandalism and cable theft.
Outages at almost 60 Wi-Fi hotspots had grown over the past few weeks, according to corporate and shared services MMC Cilliers.
Sites most affected are the CBD, the east and Soshanguve, Mamelodi and Stinkwater.
To address the problem, the city would install solar power at the CBD, Stinkwater, Soshanguve and Pretoria East.
These installations are expected to be completed by the end of February 2019, said Brink.
At the same time, vandalised Mamelodi sites will be rerouted to other sites.
Brink said “a number of key sites were severely vandalised, affecting hundreds of hotspots across the city” when a new service provider was appointed in mid-2018.
“This was made worse by the severe damage to a major optic fibre line during the Wapadrand sub-station fire.”
“As such we have installed radio uplinks to replace the Wapadrand fibre line as well as tamper-proof equipment at certain high sites.”
The metro opted to install solar technology at sites affected by repeated cable theft and reroute traffic from vandalised sites to nearby operational ones.
He said users could use up to 1 gigabyte a day and the free hotspots had been increased from 1 051 to 1 086, with more in the pipeline over the next six months
“While service interruptions are inevitable, the close working relationship between the metro and the service provider ensured solutions were quick.”
The public can report all WiFi outages to the 24-hour call centre on 012-358-8444 or by email to Wifi@tshwane.gov.za.
ALSO READ: Wi-fi service vandalism – an issue for Tshwane
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