Digital access for all with PATA-WIFI

Status: Closed

Country: Kenya

Partner: PATA-WIFI

Impact goal: 2000 people

About the project

This project aims to upgrade existing network infrastructure in Kariobangi North, Nairobi. As part of this upgrade, PATA-WIFI plans to enhance the connectivity at the local school near the market, where they currently provide free 50 Mbps of bandwidth. This upgrade will ensure that teachers and students continue to access affordable and reliable internet.

Results

In Kariobangi Market in Nairobi, traders sell everything from fresh produce to second-hand clothes. Increasingly, they also sell online. And that only works if the internet does.

PATA-WIFI runs the public WiFi in the market. With support from 48percent.org, they replaced their aging wireless equipment with a fiber connection to around 200 access points, and swapped their old backup power for a lithium battery system that keeps the network running for 72 hours when the grid goes down.

Peak bandwidth for the market doubled from 200 to 400 Mbps. The number of users grew from around 900 to 3,100, each paying 30 Kenyan shillings (about 20 eurocents) for a fast 50 Mbps connection. A local government school gets that same connection for free, and now has sponsored computers to use it on. And the project created a job: a woman who used to hawk goods in the market was trained in customer support and now helps traders get online.

Not everything went smoothly. Hardware prices shot up during the holiday season. Heavy rain slowed the rollout. And after everything tested perfectly in the lab, the live network showed huge delays. The team spent a full day troubleshooting before finding the culprit: one network setting (the MTU, which controls the size of data packets) had never been switched on. After switching it on, the network was up and running.

One trader put it like this: "Now I can go live on TikTok to sell my products without customers complaining of buffering."

About the partner

PATA-WIFI is an affordable community-focused internet service provider (ISP) dedicated to delivering reliable, high-speed connectivity to underserved neighbourhoods in Kenya. Built on the belief that internet access is a basic necessity, PATA-WIFI offers low-cost, accessible Wi-Fi solutions that empower individuals, families, and small businesses to stay connected, learn, work, and thrive in the digital world.