Background
On 23 January 2026, The Herald published an article titled "Digital leap for Zim: Govt rolls out free Wi-Fi programme". The report said Government planned to roll out free public Wi-Fi hotspots countrywide as part of a broader broadband and digital inclusion push under National Development Strategy 2, commonly known as NDS2.
The programme, according to that report, is expected to be implemented by POTRAZ, the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe. It is also linked to the Universal Service Fund, which is meant to support network expansion in economically disadvantaged areas.
The responsible minister is Tatenda Mavetera, the Minister of Information, Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services. In the Herald article, she said Government had already procured routers and was targeting at least 1,000 free Wi-Fi hotspots, with a pilot already completed in Hwedza.
So that is the background.
Now we can ask the useful question.
Will this become actual public infrastructure, or will it become another beautifully announced thing that slowly turns into a plastic shrine?
Free Wi-Fi is a good idea. That is exactly why it needs hard questions.
Let us not be childish about this.
Free public Wi-Fi can be useful.
If it works, it can help students access learning material without slaughtering their data bundles. It can help clinics connect to digital health systems. It can help people use Government services online. It can help job seekers apply for opportunities. It can help small businesses check prices, suppliers, payments, forms, emails, and all the other boring little things that keep modern life stitched together.
The Herald report mentioned public spaces such as schools, clinics, community halls, bus termini, markets, libraries and Government service centres. Those are sensible places to start. They are not random prestige locations chosen because somebody wanted a ribbon-cutting ceremony with a router in the background. They are places where internet access can actually do public work.
So no, the idea itself is not the problem.
The problem is the word free.
That word does too much work in public policy. It walks into the room wearing perfume and leaves the bill under the carpet.
Free to the user does not mean free to run.
Someone still pays for bandwidth. Someone pays for routers. Someone pays for electricity. Someone pays for repairs. Someone pays for support. Someone pays when equipment is stolen, damaged, overloaded, misconfigured, or quietly abandoned after the launch photos have done their job.
The danger is not that Zimbabwe cannot install hotspots.
The danger is that we mistake installation for service.
The real test is not the rollout. It is the service.
A rollout is easy to count.
1 hotspot. 10 hotspots. 409 hotspots. 1,000 hotspots.
Numbers behave nicely in speeches. They stand in neat rows and salute, but citizens do not experience "rollout." They experience whether the thing works or not.
Later reporting said the first phase of the free Wi-Fi rollout covered 409 locations, with the target expected to reach 1,000 sites before the end of 2026.
That sounds impressive.
But a hotspot count is not the same thing as useful internet.
A country can have many hotspots and still have poor service. A school can have a router and still have no meaningful access. A clinic can have Wi-Fi and still fail to load a Government portal. A market can have free internet and still spend half the day negotiating with a spinning wheel.
Zimbabweans know this distinction very well.
There is "connected."
Then there is online.
Those two are not twins. Sometimes they are not even cousins.
The Free Wi-Fi Reality Checklist
This is how the programme should be judged.
1. Who exactly is responsible?
The responsible political office should be clear: Tatenda Mavetera, Minister of Information, Communication Technology, Postal and Courier Services.
The implementation role should also be clear: the Herald report says the initiative is set to be implemented by POTRAZ under the NDS2 digital inclusion programme.
That matters because public projects often fail in the fog between announcement and responsibility.
When something breaks, citizens should not be sent on a pilgrimage through ministries, councils, operators, regulators, local authorities, and some poor receptionist who was only trying to eat her lunch.
The question is simple:
When a hotspot stops working, who owns the problem?
If the answer requires a committee, the service is already limping.
2. Where are the hotspots?
The programme should have a public map.
Not vibes.
Not "strategic locations."
Not "various sites countrywide," that soft little phrase politicians use when the details have gone to buy airtime.
A useful public Wi-Fi programme should tell citizens:
- where each hotspot is located;
- whether it is active;
- what type of site it serves;
- who maintains it;
- when it was last checked;
- whether it is temporarily down.
Schools, clinics, libraries, community halls, bus termini, markets and Government service centres are sensible categories. But citizens need actual places, not category soup.
A public map would also expose whether the rollout is serving need, or merely decorating politically convenient spaces with blue LEDs.
3. What is the service actually for?
This question matters more than it looks.
Is the free Wi-Fi meant to be full internet access for everything?
Or is it meant to prioritise public services, education, health information, job applications, business information and basic communication?
Those are different animals.
If the service is unlimited free internet, congestion will arrive wearing running shoes.
People will stream. Apps will update. Phones will sync backups. Someone will download a movie. Someone else will open TikTok because the human spirit is a complicated animal with poor bandwidth discipline.
That does not make users evil.
It means the service model was not designed honestly.
A public Wi-Fi network needs clear rules. Time limits. Fair-use caps. Priority for essential services. Abuse controls. Transparent restrictions.
Without that, the heaviest users will eat up all the bandwidth and leave everyone else licking the spoons.
4. How fast is it?
"Free Wi-Fi" is meaningless without speed.
A connection that cannot load an e-learning platform is not digital inclusion. It is emotional damage with an SSID.
Each hotspot should have a basic service target. Not necessarily luxury internet. Nobody is asking a clinic hotspot to behave like a private fibre line in Borrowdale.
But there should be minimum expectations:
- Can a student open learning material?
- Can a user access Government forms?
- Can a clinic use basic online systems?
- Can someone send an email with attachments?
- Can multiple users connect without the whole system wheezing like a generator with asthma?
Speed does not need to be glamorous. It needs to be honest.
5. How many people can use it at once?
A hotspot that works for five people but dies at fifty is not a public service.
It is a demonstration unit.
Capacity planning matters because the locations named in the rollout are not quiet little corners of the universe. The locations can become busy very quickly.
The test is not whether the hotspot works when the installer connects one phone.
The test is whether it works when ordinary life arrives.
That means real load. Real devices. Real people. Real impatience. Real Zimbabwe.
6. Who pays every month?
This is the section that should make everyone stop smiling for a moment.
The router is not the expensive part.
The expensive part is keeping the service alive.
Bandwidth costs money. Power costs money. Backup power costs money. Maintenance costs money. Monitoring costs money. Security costs money. Replacement equipment costs money. Support staff cost money. Theft prevention costs money. Software updates cost time, which is money... in a way.
The Herald report says the Universal Service Fund will support expansion to economically disadvantaged areas. That is important.
But the public still needs to know whether this funding covers ongoing service, not just deployment.
Because launch-day money is not operations money.
Launch-day money buys the ribbon.
Operations money keeps the thing from becoming a dead router with a Government logo.
7. What happens during load shedding?
This is Zimbabwe. We are not going to pretend electricity is a solved background detail.
Any public Wi-Fi programme that does not explain power backup is leaving a crocodile in the bathtub.
If a hotspot is placed at a clinic, school, library or growth point, what keeps it running when power goes?
Is there solar? Battery backup? Generator support? A realistic uptime plan? Or does the public Wi-Fi programme work mainly during those magical moments when ZESA and optimism briefly hold hands?
Connectivity is not just about data.
It is also about power.
8. How is user privacy handled?
Public Wi-Fi is useful.
Public Wi-Fi can also become a privacy swamp if nobody is careful.
Users should know:
- what data is collected;
- whether login details are stored;
- whether browsing activity is monitored;
- who operates the network;
- how long logs are kept;
- what rules apply to children, students and public-service users.
This does not mean the network should be lawless. Abuse prevention matters. Cybersecurity matters. Public networks need controls.
But controls should not become invisible surveillance.
A country trying to promote digital inclusion should not accidentally teach citizens that free internet means free data collection.
9. Who fixes it when it breaks?
This is where many public technology projects go to die.
Not at launch. After launch.
When the router stops working.
When the password system fails.
When the power backup dies.
When the equipment is stolen.
When the location changes.
When the service provider blames the council, the council blames the ministry, the ministry blames the operator, and the citizen is left staring at a login page that loads once every three business days.
A serious public Wi-Fi programme needs a maintenance machine.
That means:
- fault reporting;
- response times;
- assigned technical teams;
- local custodians;
- public outage notices;
- replacement plans;
- periodic checks.
A dead hotspot is not a minor inconvenience.
It is a broken promise with blinking lights.
10. Will Government publish performance data?
This is the big one.
If the rollout is publicly funded or publicly coordinated, the public should be able to see whether it works.
Not every technical detail. Nobody needs a 94-page PDF every Friday written by a committee that hates joy.
But basic performance reporting should exist:
- number of active hotspots;
- number of offline hotspots;
- average uptime;
- location coverage;
- usage volumes;
- maintenance incidents;
- expansion progress;
- average speeds or service bands.
This is not a request for the responsible authorities to perform miracles.
It is just asking for good old-fashioned accountability.
If the project works, publish the evidence.
If it does not, publish the problems and fix them.
The country has had enough projects where the launch was public and the failure was private.
What success would actually look like
A successful free public Wi-Fi programme in Zimbabwe would not be judged by whether someone announced 1,000 hotspots.
It would be judged by whether a student in a rural school can reliably access learning material.
Whether a clinic can use digital health services without praying over the router.
Whether a job seeker can apply online without choosing between data and lunch.
Whether a market trader can check prices, payments and supplier information.
Whether a citizen can access Government services without paying mobile data charges just to be frustrated by a portal that loads like it is carrying bricks uphill.
Success would also look boring.
- A public map.
- A maintenance contact.
- A sensible usage policy.
- Clear privacy rules.
- Monthly uptime reports.
- Fair-use limits.
- Priority for schools, clinics, libraries, growth points and service centres.
- A funding model that survives after the speeches.
This is the part nobody claps for, which is exactly why it matters.
Good infrastructure is often boring when it works.
Bad infrastructure is exciting every week because something is always on fire.
The danger is not failure. The danger is symbolic success.
The worst outcome is not that the programme fails immediately.
That would at least be clear.
The worst outcome is symbolic success.
A few hotspots work. A few launch photos circulate. A few speeches declare digital transformation. A few numbers enter policy documents. Everyone claps.
Then the slow rot begins.
Some hotspots become congested. Some go offline. Some are never maintained. Some are badly placed. Some are technically alive but practically useless. Some become digital ornaments. Some keep working, but nobody publishes enough data to know whether the programme is succeeding or merely surviving.
That is how public technology projects become ghosts.
Not through one dramatic collapse.
Through quiet neglect.
Through nobody owning the boring work.
Through everyone loving the announcement more than the maintenance.
The actual problem with "free internet"
The problem with Zimbabwe's free internet plan is not that free public Wi-Fi is a bad idea.
It is not.
The problem is that free is the least important word in the sentence.
The important words are:
- reliable;
- secure;
- maintained;
- funded;
- useful;
- accountable;
- publicly measured.
A free service that does not work is not a gift.
A free service that is insecure is not inclusion.
A free service with no maintenance plan is not infrastructure. It's just public theatre and political pandering.
Zimbabwe can build useful public Wi-Fi. The idea is worth taking seriously. But taking it seriously means refusing to treat the announcement as the achievement.
The routers can be bought.
The hotspots can be counted.
The speeches can be delivered.
The real question is whether the service can still be useful after the cameras leave, after the first fault reports arrive, after the first power cuts, after the first congestion complaints, after the first batch of equipment needs replacement, and after the slogan has stopped trending.
That is the test.
Not free internet.
Useful internet.
And useful internet, unfortunately, is expensive, boring, technical, political, and permanently hungry.
Which is exactly why we need the checklist.