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Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

businessinsider.co.za

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Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#101

Post by cs02rm0 »

numlock86 wrote: post #69
reaperducer wrote: post #56

I still remember when Google promised to bring free wifi to all of the poor neighborhoods in Chicago. Amid a big frenzy of local media and politician hoopla it said was going to put access points on every streetlight. Then Google found out that when the street lights turn off, there's no power to run the access points. So it just walked away.

> Then Google found out that when the street lights turn off, there's no power to run the access points. Uh? Duh! What did they expect? A switch in every street light? (Which also would need to be controlled in some way ...)

Maybe they did. We have street lights with light sensors, so they turn on when it's sufficiently dark rather than on a schedule.

I've seen videos of people who'd rather not have a light on outside their bedroom window at night setting up a laser pointer to point at the sensor to keep the light off.

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#102

Post by _-___________-_ »

numlock86 wrote: post #69
reaperducer wrote: post #56

I still remember when Google promised to bring free wifi to all of the poor neighborhoods in Chicago. Amid a big frenzy of local media and politician hoopla it said was going to put access points on every streetlight. Then Google found out that when the street lights turn off, there's no power to run the access points. So it just walked away.

> Then Google found out that when the street lights turn off, there's no power to run the access points. Uh? Duh! What did they expect? A switch in every street light? (Which also would need to be controlled in some way ...)

In my experience a fully-centralised switch is actually quite uncommon.

In many locations they use light sensors, and if you live above a street oriented the right way you can see quite a cool effect of the lights going off sequentially down the street as the light goes below the threshold.

In other locations that I'm familiar with, they use a ripple relay, where a particular signal is transmitted over the power lines (a "ripple") in a way that doesn't affect unaware equipment, but signals the target equipment (relays on the supply to the streetlights) to switch. Similar technology is used to provide day/night rates where one circuit is only energised during off-peak hours.

I don't see any reason the ripple relay couldn't be bypassed to provide a second always-on feed for the Wi-Fi gear, but it might be that the ripple relays are not at every lamp post but instead at the substations or roadside cabinets, in which case there would indeed be some cost to run the extra circuits.

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#103

Post by _-___________-_ »

zapzupnz wrote: post #97
happypants23 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a techie living in Cape Town and I love it. I have no plans to emigrate. We have problems down here yes, but they've been no impediment to my career. Both Amazon AWS and Oracle OCI have satellite development offices in Cape Town, and if anything they are hiring more and more.

Are they still having the rolling brown-outs in Cape Town? My hubby's family were getting a bit gatvol of those a while back, telling everybody here in New Zealand all about it.

gatvol?

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#104

Post by kinleyd »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #102
numlock86 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then Google found out that when the street lights turn off, there's no power to run the access points. Uh? Duh! What did they expect? A switch in every street light? (Which also would need to be controlled in some way ...)

In my experience a fully-centralised switch is actually quite uncommon. In many locations they use light sensors, and if you live above a street oriented the right way you can see quite a cool effect of the lights going off sequentially down the street as the light goes below the threshold. In other locations that I'm familiar with, they use a ripple relay, where a particular signal is transmitted over the power line…

Thanks, that was quite an interesting read.

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#105

Post by n1c »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #103
zapzupnz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they still having the rolling brown-outs in Cape Town? My hubby's family were getting a bit gatvol of those a while back, telling everybody here in New Zealand all about it.

gatvol?

> Adjective. (South Africa, slang) Completely fed up; very upset.

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#106

Post by jonathanlydall »

_-___________-_ wrote: post #103
zapzupnz wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are they still having the rolling brown-outs in Cape Town? My hubby's family were getting a bit gatvol of those a while back, telling everybody here in New Zealand all about it.

gatvol?

Speaking as a South African, still living here.

gatvol = "fed up"

It disappoints me that so many fellow South Africans are seemingly oblivious to the audience they are interacting with and casually use local slang regardless.

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#107

Post by _-___________-_ »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #106
_-___________-_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gatvol?

Speaking as a South African, still living here. gatvol = "fed up" It disappoints me that so many fellow South Africans are seemingly oblivious to the audience they are interacting with and casually use local slang regardless.

When I saw it I guessed it was some local slang, and I was excited to learn what it meant from someone who really knew rather than some online dictionary. I don't think it should be a disappointment, it contributes to the wonderful diversity of language.

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#108

Post by Aeolun »

jonathanlydall wrote: post #106
_-___________-_ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gatvol?

Speaking as a South African, still living here. gatvol = "fed up" It disappoints me that so many fellow South Africans are seemingly oblivious to the audience they are interacting with and casually use local slang regardless.

Reading South African as a Dutch person is always great. I understand most of the words, but it’s still clearly a completely different language/context.

Gatvol = hole is full

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#109

Post by Aeolun »

chilldsgn wrote: post #93
pixelpoet wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eish, that's still going on? I'm half South African and grew up in SA but left in 2007, mainly because of the crime, but also the Telkom monopoly and rolling blackouts ("load shedding") were not so conducive to starting an internet business. It's kinda amazing to me that any techies stay there. Cape Town is beautiful yes, but so is New Zealand (where many Saffers such as my family emigrated to).

It's worse than ever. I am having a lot of trouble keeping to my deadlines for work and have to work around all the blackouts which frustratingly disrupts my life and thousands of other businesses. Just a couple more years until my degree is done, then I am GTFO of here.

Can’t you get a UPS? Or do they last too long to make that an option?

Re: Google ditches its free WiFi service in South Africa, three months after launch

#110

Post by ignoramous »

krasin wrote: post #76
numlock86 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Then Google found out that when the street lights turn off, there's no power to run the access points. Uh? Duh! What did they expect? A switch in every street light? (Which also would need to be controlled in some way ...)

Google operated city-wide public WiFi in Mountain View for many years. So, it's not like they didn't have any experience. I would also like to point out that most cities have a utility electrical grid to power traffic lights and the like. While I imaging some south cities could get away with solar-powered traffic lights, it's unlikely that Chicago is one. I don't know anything about this Google+Chicago experience (ev…

> Google operated city-wide public WiFi in Mountain View for many years. So, it's not like they didn't have any experience.

Google has been operating free WiFi in India at 400+ locations since 2016 and claim they've got a 8 million userbase [0].

> ...but I would bet the issue was not as simple as "they found out that street lights turn off".

I'd be very surprised if this was true. It seems more plausible to me that news.yc has anti-Google bias.

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation...

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