Mweb (officially Mweb (Pty) Ltd and stylized as mweb) is an

internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...

(ISP) based in

Cape Town Cape Town is the legislature, legislative capital city, capital of South Africa. It is the country's oldest city and the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. Cape Town is the country's List of municipalities in South Africa, second-largest ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. Founded in 1997, Mweb is now a subsidiary of fellow South African ISP, Webafrica.

History

As one of the first Internet Service Providers in

, Mweb launched dial-up internet in South Africa with the Big Black Box, in 1997, which was issued with a copy of tech expert Arthur Goldstuck's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet, the bestselling tech book in South Africa at the time. In 2004 Mweb launched Polka, a low cost ISP. A year later, the South African division of Italian-owned ISP Tiscali was acquired by Mweb. In 2006 its 3G mobile data offerings were launched and the company resold products from two of SA's largest mobile networks. The company was later first to launch Uncapped ADSL in South Africa, in 2010, and brought the global Fon WiFi network to South Africa in 2014. Also in 2014, Mweb launched its first

fiber-to-the-home Fiber to the ''x'' (FTTX; also spelled "fibre") or fiber in the loop is a generic term for any broadband network architecture using optical fiber to provide all or part of the local loop used for Last mile (telecommunications), last mile tel ...

packages. In 2015, the company was restructured to focus mainly on the residential and small business market. In addition the company sold its Mweb Business, Optinet and core network assets divisions to Internet Solutions, a division of Dimension Data. In December 2016, Internet Solutions announced that it had entered an agreement with

Naspers Naspers Limited (until 1998 Die Nasionale Pers) is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town. The company has interests in online retail, publishing, real estate, and ventu ...

to acquire Mweb pending approval by the South African competition authorities. On 9 May 2017, it was announced that the South African competition authorities approved the proposed acquisition of Mweb with 31 May 2017 being the effective date of the sale. In July 2017, Mweb launched a selection of

LTE Advanced LTE Advanced, also named or recognized as LTE+, LTE-A or 4G+, is a 4G mobile Cellular network, cellular communication standard developed by 3GPP as a major enhancement of the LTE (telecommunication), Long Term Evolution (LTE) standard. Three tec ...

products in partnership with Rain, a fixed wireless broadband provider.

Company structure

Mweb is owned by Webafrica. The ISP operates nationally, with its headquarters in

Retail stores

The company initially had five retail stores. The retail stores were closed at the end of March 2016, opting to move all of their sales online.

References

Companies based in Cape Town Internet service providers of South Africa Telecommunications companies established in 1997 South African brands {{SouthAfrica-telecom-company-stub

History

Company structure

Retail stores

See also

References