Walking with Wi-Fi: Extending South Africa’s Digital Highway

Godfrey switches his phone to airplane mode before starting a job application. Once he has written everything offline, he walks 1.2 kilometers to a nearby mall, connects to its free Wi-Fi, and uses the one-hour access window to send his applications. After returning home, he may find that he has missed a short-notice video interview because he was no longer online.

For Godfrey, this is what South Africa’s digital divide looks like in everyday life.

A 1-hour online window

Godfrey lives in Diepsloot, a densely populated, underserved community in Gauteng. Government-subsidized housing, brick homes built by their occupants, and informal structures sit side by side. Broadband infrastructure is limited and many households, including Godfrey’s, are still unconnected.

“When I briefly use it, the Internet has revealed glimpses of life beyond the constricted space I live in,” he says. “The rest of the time, the poor connection stops me from taking further steps.”

As his family’s main breadwinner, Godfrey works part-time while pursuing his ambition to become a barista. Learning the craft requires time online. His younger sister, who is preparing to enter high school, also needs access to digital learning resources. Without home broadband and with mobile data too expensive for continuous use, reliable access remains out of reach.

South Africa has one of the highest Internet penetration rates in Africa, but national averages can conceal sharp local inequalities. For people in communities such as Diepsloot, limited connectivity restricts access to education, employment information and public services.

Building capacity behind access

The South African government launched the SA Connect national broadband strategy to close these gaps and expand affordable, reliable, and high-capacity broadband access across the country by 2030.

Broadband Infraco (BBI), a state-owned enterprise under the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies, is responsible for expanding national broadband infrastructure. BBI builds and operates the backbone network, while local Internet Service Providers and Access Network Providers take connectivity further into communities, public Wi-Fi locations, and homes.

Huawei is supporting BBI with the optical technologies used to increase the capacity, flexibility and reliability of the backbone network. Huawei’s Optical Cross-Connect technology allows BBI to carry 800G wavelengths across the network, increasing the volume of data that can move between cities and data centers, and providing the capacity needed to expand access networks. ASON protection and Fiber Doctor help improve network resilience, fault detection, and maintenance.

Rather than functioning as the final connection into a home, the backbone provides the capacity and reliability that local providers need to extend broadband into underserved areas.

“The 800G devices bring high-quality SLAs and massive bandwidth,” says Julius Tsita, a network engineer at BBI. “These devices play a critical role as we progress SA Connect, connecting residents of remote communities to the outside world.”

Connecting communities

Through its intelligent all-optical backbone and partnerships with local service providers, BBI reports that it has supported connectivity for more than 13,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots and over 2 million homes in rural and underserved areas across South Africa.

Local small- and medium-sized providers form an important part of this delivery model. They help build and operate access networks, extend services into communities, and adapt broadband provision to local conditions. BBI’s model is also designed to give these companies opportunities to build technical experience, grow their businesses, and create local employment.

“Improving Internet access is the key to driving economic growth,” says Nomso Kana, CEO of local Internet service provider SimSciex. “With the reliable network built by BBI, we have expanded rural and household network coverage with high-quality broadband, enabling remote work, boosting employment, and helping SMEs reach new markets.”

BBI has completed 100G, 400G and 800G backbone network construction across Gauteng and parts of South Africa’s northern regions. It also plans to extend fiber connectivity from Johannesburg to the Kopfontein border, strengthening cross-border capacity within the Southern African Development Community region. The longer-term plan is for the backbone to cover all nine provinces and extend to South Africa’s borders with neighboring countries. These future phases are expected to provide the capacity needed for wider broadband access and growing digital services, including online education, telemedicine, e-government and e-commerce.

The next connection

Godfrey’s community has now been included in the SA Connect plan. Fiber and Wi-Fi coverage is planned by the end of 2026, together with more affordable service packages for underserved communities. Until that coverage becomes available, Godfrey is not yet an example of how the project has changed an individual life. His experience instead provides a clear measure for what the next stage must achieve: translating national infrastructure into reliable and affordable access for people who remain unconnected.

For SA Connect, more than 13,000 public Wi-Fi hotspots and over 2 million connected homes mark an important step toward nationwide connectivity. As coverage continues to extend toward Diepsloot, the opportunities that Godfrey and many other young people are waiting for are moving closer too.

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