Taking Rural Areas into the Fourth Industrial Revolution: 3 Solid Internet Options

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR)  fundamentally is a change in the way we live, work and play. 4IR has been marked as a new chapter for the human race. The advances which the fourth industrial revolution has brought has the ability of merging the physical, digital and biological worlds in ways that create both huge promise and potential peril if not used wisely. The speed, breadth and depth of this revolution is forcing us to rethink how countries develop, how organisations create value and even what it means to be human.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution should not be restricted to urban and metropolitan areas. The question is, how do we give access to this technology in those parts of South Africa which don’t have access to the internet. In South Africa, various groups are promoting the Fourth Industrial Revolution and actively seeking to leverage the paradigm shift. Realistically, South Africans have some time before they can fully enjoy the benefits of innovation-driven prosperity. One of the areas needing keep improvements is internet connectivity in rural areas.

For Fourth Industrial Revolution to really manifest in South Africa, more South Africans need to be connected, and that includes all areas of society from the big city to farms. Fortunately, there are more and more options for internet connectivity even in rural areas, and Fibre Boyz suggests 3 such options in this short article. Particularly, we will discuss satellite internet, point to point solutions and TP Link solutions that allow those on farms to monetise their connection and share it with their neighbours.

South Africa and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The Fourth Industrial Revolution has been a focal point in recent months, and is a key policy initiative of the Cyril Ramaphosa led administration but less than 2% of South African rural households can access the internet from home and clearly there is work to be done if more people are going to be part of the connected economy as satellite is the most accessible method of internet communication.

Mainstream internet service providers have largely targeted coffee shops, restaurants, and other small service businesses when it was introduced earlier this year and we have forgotten rural communities and there are solutions which we can offer.

We have solutions designed to empower farmers and other rural communities with an affordable way of giving their workers access to reliable high-speed internet, which can eliminate the reliance on GSM services which has poor reception and extremely high mobile voice and data rates. Yes our solutions are part of the #datamustfall movement!

Farm workers have had to pay exorbitant prices for entry-level voice and data packages. To make matters worse, connectivity in outlying areas often results in dropped calls, slow internet speeds, and an inability to stay in touch with their loved ones.

Rural workers who have children living in school hostels and family members working far away deserve better ways of communicating with them. Satellite connectivity is the cornerstone on which the offering is built, with our Point to point solutions which will allow signals to be transmitted across a typical farm community which will allow them to own their own farm wifi network. This will allow farmers the opportunity to create a WiFi network for their workers where they can make wifi calls calls to any South African number and access the internet.

The TP Link solutions on offer allow farmers to even sell on their services to their neighbours which allow them to save costs through sharing. And its user-friendly dashboard means viewing data usage is a swipe of a finger away.

Contact mpumi@fibreboyz.co.za for tailor made solutions for your farm.