Domestication of Free Wi-Fi Amongst People Living in Disadvantaged Communities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa

By the end of 2013, only 10% of households in South Africa had access to the Internet. In that regard, the government introduced different programmes to bridge the digital divide. The City of Cape Town, for example, rolled out the Smart Cape free municipal Wi-Fi programme in some underserved communities. Informed by the domestication theory and using semi-structured interviews, this study endeavoured to understand experiences of people using the free Wi-Fi. Key findings are that most interviewees visited libraries with the Wi-Fi at least once a week and primarily used the service to do research and access social media sites. Teachers interviewed in the study talked about using the free Wi-Fi in their schools every day to search for material to prepare for their classes.