November 2015: With South Africans increasingly looking for ways to remain connected, the need for Wi-Fi services is becoming a given. Recognised by both the public and the private sector as a trend that cannot be ignored, organisations are making efforts to provide Wi-Fi services in more and more locations for the benefit of the public and their clients.

In line with this, the prestigious African Pride Melrose Arch Hotel has embarked on a major project to enhance its Wi-Fi offering to guests and conference delegates. “We are now providing high speed uncapped Wi-Fi for guests, an initiative that necessitated a substantial investment in additional technology,” explains the hotel’s General Manager, Tania Malan.

This follows from the previous service in terms of which guests were able to use 500 MB of free Wi-Fi per day, ideal for keeping up to date with emails, social media and browsing the internet. “We’ve seen how popular that has been – the vast majority of our guests used the service,” says Malan. Since most of our guests are from Europe and the United States, they are quite used to accessing free Wi-Fi all over the place.”

“It’s not only those who stay in the hotel who will benefit,” Malan says. “We expect great enthusiasm for the new connectivity from our conference delegates. It’s not often that business people who are away from their offices at a conference are able to remain in touch throughout the day, so the extension of the Wi-Fi offering is bound to be popular in our conference facilities.“

Guests will also be able to enjoy Wi-Fi connectivity when they are elsewhere at the Melrose Arch Precinct, dining, shopping or just out to enjoy the ambience in one of Johannesburg’s most sought-after locations for the trend-setter crowd. The Precinct recently introduced new fibre optic cabling, which gives visitors to the Precinct up to 2 hours of free Wi-Fi every 24 hours. For businesses, there’s 10Mb uncapped Wi-Fi per day.

“Thousands of people work in the area, many live in the various apartment blocks, and there are many more who visit the Precinct throughout the day and at night, so this is a 365-day 24/7 location. Providing Wi-Fi in this busy environment is a huge task because of the size of the Precinct, but we are already seeing the popularity of our service among members of the public since we got it off the ground during October,” says Reiner Henschel, Melrose Arch’s Operations Manager, who explains that the service is available from JBs Corner all the way through to the Piazza.

So, when you’re next at Melrose Arch, be sure to get connected.

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