Frogfoot Networks announced the sale of its consumer client base to Web Africa this week. This move allows Frogfoot to focus on the business internet services market.

“Web Africa is most probably the best consumer focused ISP in South Africa and we are confident that our consumer clients will find a happy new home with them” says Johann Botha, director of Frogfoot Networks.

The ISP industry is South Africa is showing a trend of consolidation as the telecommunications market is faced with accelerated change. Successful businesses will need to adapt and move with these trends as more competition is introduced to the market.

Frogfoot’s new focus aims to address a rapidly emerging need for specialist technical skills in the networking and ISP market. People with these “deep tech” skills are a rare breed and are often lured overseas.

“We enjoy managing complexity and we are good at creative problem solving”, says Botha, “let’s just say we were not optimally using our experience and skills selling commodity services where we could not add much value”.

The new Frogfoot will focus on building networks. Scalable, highly available, carrier-class networks. Frogfoot’s strategy is to be ahead of the curve as new networking technologies are adopted in the local telecommunications market. Frogfoot builds and manages networks though its partnership with Extreme Networks and strong Linux and Open Source skills.

Frogfoot sees a need for aggregation in the local ISP market and aims to help its partners benefit from economies of scale by providing carrier and core networks, peering and traffic optimisation. Frogfoot will work with partners, helping them to provide new and unique services to the market.

Frogfoot Networks is an independent technology company providing innovative internet services and open source solutions for business. Frogfoot’s service offering includes: Wholesale Connectivity, Managed Network Services and Consulting. Frogfoot was founded in 2000 and is based in Cape Town.

More info:
www.frogfoot.com
0860 KERMIT

Introducing the Frogspot Network

Frogfoot Networks is creating a revolutionary Wireless Broadband Network and motivating a wide community of people to help them build it. Using inexpensive Wifi technology and an innovative business model they plan to offer broadband internet to a broader market.

Frogfoot wanted to build a business model that would stimulate the entrepreneurial spirit in people. Something that would spread through word of mouth. Something fun and innovative that builds recurring monthly revenue. A viral business model.

They created a model that empowers entrepreneurs to build and operate a Broadband Access Network, extending the reach of existing internet connections with Wireless Hotspots. Think of their business model as a way for a community of people to build infrastructure in a distributed and democratised way. “Share with your neighbour, but make some money for your efforts” said Johann Botha, one of Frogfoot’s Directors.

Consider the untapped potential that could be unlocked by adding a hotspot to every existing internet connection in South Africa. An ADSL line which used to serve one or two people could now server 10 or more. Frogfoot is betting on each of these network end-points blooming into a Wifi Hotspot to reach thousands more people. With more than 100% month to month growth over the last six months, their bet seems to be paying off.

“At Frogfoot we like to say: Let the animals run the zoo!, which captures our vision of empowering entrepreneurs to build networks.” said Johann. “We set out to build a business model which we would have wanted to get involved in ourselves.”

“People are setting up Hotspots in suburbs or apartment complexes and are making enough money to pay for their own internet usage, plus they walk away with a few hundred rands in their back pockets” said Jonathan Endersby, one of Frogfoot’s developers.

Frogfoot’s end-user Wifi costs are amongst the lowest Wifi access costs available with packages as little as 12c per megabyte. The company also sells various scratch cards with denominations as small as 25MB for R9.95.

The Green Agents

Frogfoot recently launched their Hotspot Agent program. Hotspot Agents help build a network of Wifi Hotspots by introducing new Hotspot Operators.

Hotspot Agents earn 20% of profits from Hotspots they introduce. And best of all, this is an ongoing passive income stream.

All an Agent has to do is have a cup of coffee with someone and say “This Frogspot thing is really cool, look at their website and go order yourself one.”

While the offer might sound too good to be true it’s actually built on solid business principles. Frogfoot benefits from the increased reach given to them by their Agents and in turn gives the Agents a cut of the profits.

“The crux of this model is that if someone gets a few hotspots on their books they’ll be making money without doing any work” said Jonathan “… and that money will keep on appearing in their account every single month for as long as the hotspots are moving megabytes.”

About Frogfoot:
Frogfoot Networks is an Independent Technology Company providing innovative Internet Services and Open Source Solutions. Their service offering includes: Wifi Hotpots, ADSL, Linux Virtual Servers, VPNs and Web Hosting. Frogfoot was founded in 2000 and is based in Newlands, Cape Town.

More information:
www.frogfoot.com
0860 KERMIT