Wi-Fi Hotspot News

We hope you've all had a wonderful year. For those of your that didn't make it through, we're sorry to see you go. No doubt you'll be back with a vengeance soon; make sure you get in touch when you do.

It would be foolish to say that the year's been easy, plain sailing, a walk in the park. Lots of our customers have gone out of business or moved on. We've had to completely restructure our business, drop our prices and introduce a series of new Free Wi-Fi Packages. This time last year, 90% of our Wireless Hotspots were selling Internet Vouchers - now 90% are offering free Wi-Fi to their customers.

This has made us focus - it was time to shake things up a little. Converting lots of WiFi Hotspots to free ones had a massive impact on our business but now we have even more hotspots than ever. For every one we lost, we've added 5 more, mainly because of the popularity of our low cost, Free Wi-Fi Packages. We know we got it right because half the competition have borrow our prices (but not the service).

A few months ago we started PolkaSpots Web Solutions - your one stop shop for your online business needs. Online shop, blog, forum, website, CRM, booking and more. In the New Year, we'll be introducing some new bundles to make it even more worth your while to sign-up. Like everything we do, PolkaSpots Web is about service. We have so much experience and knowledge within the company, it's great to be finally offering it out to help other businesses grow. Keep your eyes peeled to see what we're doing in 2010.

Visiting Linknet / Macha Works in Zambia has changed my life completely. What a wonderful experience it was to put our skills and experience to work in one of the toughest environments on the planet. Despite the short trip, I've come away with many friends and everyone at PolkaSpots looks forward to helping you all achieve a truly connected Africa in years to come.

Despite the economy, we've doubled in size over the last few months. A very warm welcome to all of your that have started working with PolkaSpots - Nick, Liz, Lydia and Luis. A special thanks goes out to Michael Speechley for all his hard-work, commitment and genuine dedication to the company and cause.

ne last thanks has to go out to everyone at Pronto Networks - we couldn't have done it without your understanding, support and patience.

Hopefully 2010 will be a prosperous year for you all. Enjoy the Christmas Holidays!

Simon (the big scary boss).

PS. I didn't actually write this on Christmas Day; we have a clever little system thanks to PolkaSpots Web

A busy day for us as we prepare for 2010. We were up with the techies at 430 this morning to finalise our migration to a completely virtual server environment.

You may have noticed that we like to have a bit of fun in the office, what's the point in being bored all day. Although having said that, we all stare at computer screens a bit too much. Apart from Nick that is, who still uses HB pencils.

It's not all fun and we do spend a lot of time caressing our servers to make sure they're functioning 100% of the time. Unlike our Wireless Hotspots, we don't massage them in beer - that would just be foolish. Instead they are cuddled by a bunch of bearded men (and women) 24/7 to make sure they're happy. This week we've completed a long standing upgrade to migrate our service from dedicated hardware to a virtual set-up. This has increased our redundancy and is saving us a lot of electricity! So, good all round.

Now, tired we're closing the office until the New Year. If you need help and support drop us a line or call the office!

I've been back in the UK now for just about 2 weeks, it's been next to impossible to write on the PolkaSpots Blog. Sorry if you've missed it, we've had more than a couple of complaints! I think I managed to use all my creative juices up writing from under my mosquito net in a wooden hut.

Much of our attention is currently is focused on Linknet's project to deploy a network of Wireless Hotspots across Zambia. It's great to see our system being used to it's full potential and Macha is currently seeing around more than 1Gb of data downloaded everyday. That's more than the average hotel and considering that's using a 128kbit/s satellite service, quite impressive.

Last week enjoyed the company of Mr. van Stam in the PolkaSpots office. He was staying with me for a week having been asked to talk at the CTO's conference on 'Investing in ICT in Emerging Markets'. Sadly we couldn't make it down but were able to read his presentation on the LinkNet site here.

Keep your eyes peeled over the next week for ways that you can help bring the Internet to rural Africa.

About 2 weeks ago, I was sitting in a small IT room in the middle of Zambia. It was a shock arriving and more of one getting back to the friendly faces and sunny weather of London town. What was I doing there? We were asked to go over and help save their precious bandwidth.

In the Southern Province of Zambia, there's a small village called Macha; it's home to the National Malaria Institute and Linknet. For a few years, Linknet have been providing an Internet connection to the local community via an expensive satellite connection. On a daily basis over 100 user share this 128kbit/s connection - that's quite a lot of people. Access has been slow to say the least.

The have recently introduced a single PolkaSpots Wireless Hotspot box to help control the connection. Each user receives a username and password and their bandwidth is carefully monitored. Nicely done!

While providing Wireless Internet isn't necessarily superficial over here, working with the Linknet team has opened my eyes. You'll notice that our blog has been a little sparse recently - in truth, it's hard to find something interesting to write when everyone around you is only focusing on seemingly insignificant problems. Perhaps from time to time we should open our eyes and look what's actually going on around us.

Much of next year will be spent focusing on helping Linknet achieve their dream of connecting Africa. Don't worry, we won't forget about you!