Sizwe Cell Phone Shop in Atteridgeville Township, South Africa gets a high speed GSM data connettion.
Sizwe Cell Phone Shop in Atteridgeville Owned by Zoli Mtimkulu Age 39 Zoli has been running the business since 2002 Educated in America where he studied physiotherapy he now runs a practice in Atteridgeville alongside the phone shop which is looking to expand in a spare room at the back of the shop to teach computer skills to local people in the township The shop has had three computers since April 2006 Zoli complained that the computers are not user friendly as they have no USB connectors for memory sticks and are therefore only really suitable for internet and email The Systems run on LINUX which is much easier to maintain as MTN local phone company have had problems with people hacking into Windows changing passwords and altering configurations The most popular Web content includes music horoscopes cars web mail Google searches astrology job television soap operas and sport mainly football Many people in the township suffer from a lack of education and often need help with the computers The staff are most often asked to help with writing CV s downloading music and printing documents Around eight people a day use the computers Previously Pretoria was the closest place which is between 15 and 20 kilometres away and cost R5 for 1hr but in Zoli s shop its R5 for half hour In fact last week it was R4 for 15min s The problem for this shop is that most of the kids go to school in Pretoria where competition and demand is stronger which has forced the price up Zoli was asked how he felt the community had benefited from having internet access and he thought that the school kids had the most benefit from having such a powerful research tool for their projects Ever keen to expand his business Zoli now intends to sell airtime top ups
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Photo credit: © Charles Sturge / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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