Afrique Telecom is deploying internet services over Sub-Saharan Africa in combination with Eutelsat's satellite capacity. The "TamTam" service will extend internet access in rural areas using Wi-Fi hotspots for collective access.
TamTam will be used to offer free access to French-language Wikipedia content for many thousands of users. The initiative, starting in French-speaking Africa, supports Wikimedia France's strategy to promote free access to educational content, in particular through Wikipedia.
In order to offer free, unlimited access, Afrique Telecom has developed a server located at TamTam hotspots that will locally host French-language Wikipedia content. The content will be updated regularly via a satellite link provided by Eutelsat. Afrique Telecom's ambition is to roll-out "TamTam" to between 4,000 and 8,000 hotspots in the next two years. Eutelsat has agreed to finance servers hosted by the first 1,000 hotspots as a springboard that will also measure the impact of the service.
The Wikimedia movement has made a priority of improving accessibility and content creation on Wikipedia for so-called "Southern" countries. There is still a large gap between Northern and Southern countries in terms of the number of readers and contributors to Wikimedia platforms as well as content on Southern countries. French-speaking Africa is a priority action area for the Wikimedia France Foundation, as a complement to its Afripedia project.
