The municipalities of Ekurhuleni and Emfuleni have entrusted Vodacom to help them streamline service delivery by keeping staff reliably connected. Vodacom has begun rolling out its world-class solutions for both municipalities as part of a three-year contract.

“Vodacom is proud to be helping the Ekurhuleni metropolitan municipality and Emfuleni local municipality deliver on their purpose to grow and support their local economies,” says Poppy Tshabalala, Managing Executive of Public Enterprise for Vodacom Business. “To honour their purpose, it’s crucial for these municipalities to stay connected to the communities they serve, and to ensure that service delivery is not interrupted by connectivity downtime, which is where Vodacom’s expertise and offerings come in.”

Streamlining hybrid working for Ekurhuleni

Serving hybrid-work staff of Ekurhuleni – one of the country’s eight big metropolitan municipalities, which makes a substantial contribution to Gauteng’s economy – needs reliable, high-quality, always-on connectivity. This is to ensure that services, from water supply to refuse removal, healthcare and more, can be efficiently delivered to residents across more than 20 large East Rand towns, from Alberton and Edenvale to Springs and Tembisa.

Thanks to Vodacom’s expansive network, the large coverage area poses no challenge. Vodacom’s coverage has proven to deliver a seamless experience for users no matter which area they’re based in and whether they’re connecting remotely at home or on-site from their business’s premises.

The solution provided to Ekurhuleni municipality includes Access Point Name (APN) connectivity, which is bundled with Vodacom’s security services to ensure that data on municipal residents is not compromised and that only authorised municipal staff can access it.

Keeping channels of communication open in Emfuleni

Staff serving this local municipality, which is situated in Gauteng’s Sedibeng District, are also benefitting from Vodacom’s always-on, high-quality connectivity. With communication a cornerstone of their work, Emfuleni opted to streamline operations through Vodacom’s cloud-based solutions.

“This means that Emfuleni will enjoy Vodacom’s VoIP offering and Hosted Call and Contact Centre service, which guarantees high reliability and availability levels as it’s built on our next-generation access fibre network,” explains Tshabalala. Both of these secure, cloud-based services offer robust connectivity for municipal staff communicating with residents and city contractors.

When the municipality’s agents are out in the field addressing essential services, Vodacom’s Push-to-Talk services keeps them connected to office-based staff. Similar to two-way radio systems, but more effective, Push-to-Talk enables instant, real-time communications between everyone on the network, with options to chat one-on-one or in groups. This reliable, on-demand flexibility has helped the municipality improve service delivery to communities.

“Our future-proof solutions are helping local government branches expedite service delivery to benefit the community in tangible ways,” says Tshabalala. “As a partner to government partner, we are committed to helping them create an economically strong, inclusive, digital-first society. This is at the root of Vodacom’s purpose to connect South Africa for a better future.”