Pillay, Kasandra2026-08-182026-08-182026-05978-1-905824-76-2http://hdl.handle.net/10204/14895SANReN Connect Proof of Concept (POC) is a new VPN-based solution designed to provide students with zero-cost internet access. It creates a great opportunity for South African mobile network providers and the South African NREN to extend internet connectivity reach to the South African research and education community. The service is intended to reroute student traffic destined for the internet through zerorated SANReN Connect IP addresses, using reversed billing services funded by SANReN. Multiple IP addresses and ports selected for loading balancing, represent Virtual Private Networks for a university which have been zero rated and are used to connect to the internet. Students are authenticated via the Identity Federation for the South African research and higher education community, SAFIRE. The SANReN Connect POC service leverages a national mobile provider’s (in this case, Telkom’s) national network coverage so that it provides access to the internet throughout the country without having to be at a specific institution or hotspot location. This paper documents the progress of the implementation of the service. It is envisioned that the service may be of interest for other NRENs to consider as a way of extending their network connectivity reach. The POC service will be launched at the national Centre for High Performance Computing (CHPC) conference in December 2025. Results from initial testing have been positive - showing that the solution is viable, however more exposure is required to the intended target market to determine whether the service should be taken to production.FulltextenMobile dataReversed billingNetwork connectivityData for higher education and researchStudent dataConference Presentationn/a