Image: PROJECT ISIZWE.ORG
James Devine is standing in front of the Dashboard of Destiny, one of several large screens on a wall in his Pretoria operations room. It shows that 892 people are online right now.
A screen next to it shows cascading yellow and green dots merging in the centre to drop to the bottom of the screen. This is a real-time graphic showing internet users and the websites they are connecting with, meeting each other in the ether.
The green dots represent some of the 1.2million people who have used the free Wi-Fi service launched by the Tshwane metro since October.
The operations room belongs to Project Isizwe, the company contracted to bring the internet to people who have previously been on the wrong side of the digital divide in the capital city.
The project is run out of a half-built faux castle on a ridge in the city's Faerie Glen suburb. From the battlements you can see the vast township of Mamelodi, one of the key target areas for the project.
Although many cities have promised free internet access to their residents, Tshwane has delivered - and at the ultra-low price of less than R1 a gigabyte per user per month.
To accomplish this, base stations have been built on the highest points overlooking the coverage area - at the water reservoirs on the hills. From these base stations Wi-Fi is distributed to street lights on which small white boxes are the only indicator that the internet has arrived. More than 6000km of fibreoptic cable, piggy-backing on Eskom electricity pylons and new power-supply lines to the reservoirs, have been laid, requiring co-operation between the council, the utility and the project's management.
About 213 schools in Mamelodi, Soshanguwe, Atteridgeville and distant Ga-Rankuwa have been connected to the system, making it possible for teachers to download learning aids and to turn computer labs into real learning resources.
"The way for this country to go forward is education," said Devine as we pass Emtunzini Primary School, in Mamelodi, with its white Wi-Fi box attached to a telephone pole.
The network blocks porn and violence and is limited during school hours to prevent pupils being distracted from their lessons.
Devine, once sceptical about getting through this bureaucratic maze, praises the bureaucrats.
"It's changed the way I view municipalities," he said.
He describes the Eskom people who made the 213 connections to the reservoir sites and the street poles as "true heroes".
Project CEO Alan Knot-Craig said: "We took a financial risk. Pay us if it works. Don't pay us if it doesn't."
"There's nothing original with the idea of government-funded access to the internet. The uniqueness of Tshwane Free Wi-Fi is that it has actually happened. And it's the costing that made it possible."
He said the most visited site is the Tshwane University of Technology's curriculum pages.
"The biggest benefit is that those kids who want to get ahead, who have a hunger to get ahead, can now get ahead, thanks to being able to get onto the web."
In the operations room, Devine oversees the work of 20 or so people, each working on keeping the data flow alive on users' workstations.
Working on a mast above a reservoir overlooking Mamelodi is Henning de Lange, a former mine captain at Lonmin. Now he helps roll out hi-tech infrastructure.
"For every single one of them [this project] was their first job or they didn't have a job before," said Devine.
"What's the real secret to this project?" I ask.
He replies: "How do you eat an elephant? One mouthful at a time."