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Johannesburg - Telecommunications company Telkom says that 1 000 voting stations across South Africa will have free Wi-Fi.
Telkom is the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) ICT partner and will provide connectivity to help officials with vote tallying from over 22 000 polling stations.
But while waiting to vote, voters at selected voting stations will also be able to connect to Telkom’s free Wi-Fi networks.
“In addition to the primary solution that caters for the IEC's needs, Telkom is providing a network of open access free Wi-Fi hotspots in almost 1 000 voting stations all over the country to show voters the power and quality of the Telkom network,” said Telkom in a statement.
“This pilot programme will utilise Telkom’s existing LTE/4G infrastructure and will likely be expanded for future elections, if successful,” said the company.
Apart from providing connectivity to electoral officials and some voters across the country, Telkom said it further plans to help connect broadcasters and media channels.
Telkom also said that its data centre at its Centurion headquarters in Gauteng “is at the heart of the IEC's Disaster Recovery (DR) measure”.
“Working as a mirror image of the IEC's Head Office, all data activities at the IEC HQ are replicated at Telkom's Data Centre in real time,” said Telkom.
“In the unlikely event of disaster at IEC HQ, the DR site will take over all activities and the elections will proceed uninterrupted,” added the company.
Telkom also said that it has been an ICT partner to the IEC since South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994.
