By Mohamed Alaa El-Din
To combat the pervasive issues of internet speed and quality in the country, a group of youth thought out of the box to provide internet service for free, under the concept of mutual benefit. Eight Egyptian youths worked for about 14 months to come up with the application, Youtta.
A team member outlined the application’s idea and how it works, saying it is based on adding all users’ Wi-Fi passwords to the application and uploading them onto the map to allow internet service through Wi-Fi for free in the area. Moreover, for every person who uses the internet through the application in a specific area, the network owner acquires points – he/she can make use of these points by using another user’s Wi-Fi.
According to the member, who preferred to remain anonymous, the service will be for free, stressing that there are a number of procedures to guarantee the confidentiality of data. The system was built on the Parse Cloud System, a company that offers solutions in the field of cloud computing, affiliated to Facebook. Moreover, the passwords of all users will be hidden to prevent anyone from using the networks without the permission of their owners.
He added that the aim of the application is not to cover Egypt alone. The company plans to expand and cover the whole world with the service. He noted that the more users there are, the bigger the network will be, unlike mobile companies providing 3G services, for which their service quality reduces with the increase of users. The application also allows transferring the points of any user to any other user, unlike the communication companies that do not allow transferring megabytes among users.
The company currently depends on trying the application within a narrow range of users to make sure that the notion is applicable on a wider range. The member mentioned that the application would officially be launched on 23 June, in a number of areas that have an acceptable number of users who can open their Wi-Fi networks. The service will not be provided in other areas for now, because of the disproportionate number of residents and number of communication points, like Alexandria, which has 270 communication points, and Upper Egypt, which recorded 160 points, which are small numbers in comparison to the number of residents in these two areas.
The member added that they are not focusing on making revenues through the service for the moment, but they plan to work on that aim in three years from launching the application. The team is studying a number of systems to make profit through.
