Project Isizwe
How a South African non-profit delivers affordable, uncapped internet across schools, townships, malls, mines, and solar farms, connecting 600,000+ monthly active users at national scale.
Who Is Project Isizwe?
Founded in 2013, Project Isizwe is a South African non-profit providing equitable internet access to underserved schools and communities. They partner with ISPs, local authorities, businesses, and international organizations to deploy free and affordable Wi-Fi across public schools, townships, shopping centers, mining sites, and solar farms. Operating with a team of nine people, they run one of Africa's largest free Wi-Fi networks, serving 600,000 users monthly, through a model that balances CSR funding, advertising, and low-cost voucher access.
Key Statistics of Project Isizwe Deployments
1002 hotspot sites in 8 provinces
115 schools connected (70 000+ learners & teachers)
300 000+ active users monthly
600 000+ users from 60 underserved communities
Network Equipment Project Isizwe Uses
Project Isizwe runs MikroTik routers and Cambium/Cudy access points across all deployments - currently on wireless infrastructure, with fiber migration planned. The hardware stack is standardized, supporting rapid deployment across diverse environments: school classrooms, township hotspots, shopping malls, mining sites, and solar farms — and all centrally managed through Powerlynx.
Challenges Project Isizwe Faces at National Scale
Hyper-diverse footprint – schools, townships, mines, malls, wind- & solar-farms need different rules and sponsors.
Low-income users – data must be free or cheaper than R5/day.
Tiny operations team – automation, self-service onboarding and zero-touch updates are essential.
Hybrid funding – mix of CSR sponsors, advertising and voucher sales.
Features Project Isizwe Relies On
Powerlynx helps Project Isizwe create and manage any hotspot bundle in minutes, setting price, speed, validity, traffic limits, online time limits, and max simultaneous devices per plan across every location from one dashboard.
Project Isizwe can now view all online hotspot users separately from regular customers, check individual usage statistics, and manage accounts instantly — without manual intervention per user.
Project Isizwe creates, customizes, prints, and distributes Wi-Fi vouchers, letting users purchase plans directly from the splash page in a few clicks, controlling traffic and preventing network abuse.
Project Isizwe partner with local communities and brands through the built-in ad module, giving users free internet after watching short video or image ads, funding the network without charging the user.
Wi-Fi in Support of Education
For 115 public schools now enjoy uncapped classroom Wi-Fi; daily caps apply only off-campus.
70 000 learners & teachers connected in 2024.
Captive portal shows school logo, OTP login and 1 GB/day plan.
Integration with Walebone DNS resolver to filter and block malicious websites and sensitive content.
Vision roadmap: connect 16 000 unserved SA schools by 2030.
Uncapped R5 Wi-Fi
R5/day (≈ US $0.25) for unlimited data.campus.
Community resellers earn margin on voucher sales; Powerlynx auto-creates users & enforces plan limits.
Deployed in Lamontville, Mpophomeni, and Dunoon and covers over 18,000 homes.
130+ high-range APs and 320 home extenders installed.
Over 3,000 unique users, with 1,000+ monthly paying customers.
Wi-Fi for Economic Growth
Free guest Wi-Fi in 7 township malls reaches 30 000 shoppers/month, 500 MB free per user.
Splash pages with banners and video ad promos from sponsors.
Free Wi-Fi for mining & solar & wind farm communities
- Deployed 32 free WiFi hotspots across 28 physical site locations
- 34,000 monthly active users connect to the internet
25 free WiFi hotspots with 5000+ monthly active users
10 sites with 6000+ monthly active users
