As South Africa continues to grapple with the coronavirus pandemic and COVID-19, there have been concerns around how South Africans can access timely and accurate information in the face of high data costs.

While some people have home internet plans that they can rely on during social distancing and potential lockdowns, the majority of South Africans have to rely on expensive mobile data to get updates on the global pandemic.

However, biNU, the distributors of data-free messaging app Moya Messenger, are now providing data-free acccess to the official South African coronavirus website (owned by SA government).

The data-free version of the website is available via biNU’s platform, accessible via any device on all mobile networks with the URL https://coronavirus.datafree.co.

The altered URL sends users to an identical website, but reverse charges the data costs similarly to toll-free numbers, biNU CEO Gour Lentell explains in a press release.

“At biNu we wanted to contribute to and support the country in this time of need so we made #datafree access available to the official SA coronavirus website through our reverse billed data agreements with mobile network operators, which translates to biNu paying the data cost instead of mobile subscribers.”

Gour Lentell, CEO at biNu

https://coronavirus.datafree.co is available on any device across all mobile network operators, no airtime is deducted, and can be accessed with SIM cards that have no airtime or data balance, according to biNu.