Launch day: Shiftnet V25 is live

No downloads, no downtime, nothing to install. The rollout completed while your routers kept serving customers, and the new tools are simply there — on the dashboard, on the agent portal, and on the login page your customers already know. Here is everything that shipped.

#01For your customers

• Instant mobile money. Buying a bundle on the hotspot portal now finishes in seconds. Approve the payment on your phone and the voucher appears on screen, already applied — and if the page is closed mid-purchase, coming back resumes it instead of starting over.
• Lost-code recovery. "Lost your code?" on the portal returns a customer's most recent usable voucher from just their phone number. No walk back to the kiosk, no support call.
• A login page worth looking at. The captive portal got a full redesign — your branding, clean glass cards, and provider notices for planned maintenance or announcements, right where every customer already looks.
• SMS that keeps them online. Broadband customers get an automatic renewal reminder before expiry and a notice if service lapses, so fewer people wake up disconnected.

#02For providers

• One-command router setup. Everything a new router needs — remote access, telemetry, central RADIUS, the captive portal, the walled garden — installs from a single command pasted into the router terminal. Replacing or resetting a router is just as quick.
• A portal that earns. Glass advert cards on the login page turn the screen your users already see into a second income stream, with paid campaign stats on your dashboard.
• A wallet you can audit. The receipts ledger now accounts for every shilling — sales, platform charges, voucher connect fees, withdrawals and customer SMS costs all itemised, and the running balance tallies with your withdrawable balance to the shilling. SMS costs now show right on your dashboard too.
• Voucher sheets, instantly. Batch voucher PDFs download in about two seconds, and re-downloads are near-instant — no more failed downloads on mobile connections.
• Hardened security. A router security suite, device-session management with one-tap revocation, and safer team access controls are built into the dashboard.
• Deeper router telemetry. Live per-port ethernet status and speeds, board health, and connected-user counts for every router on your map.

#03Under the hood

V25 also carries a season of invisible work: purchase-to-connect time roughly halved, central RADIUS keeping voucher activations in sync so your sales numbers are always current, self-healing payment checks that quietly resolve abandoned transactions, and compatibility fixes that bring older RouterOS v6 routers onto the platform cleanly.

#04What's next

The adverts network is only getting started — it is the first piece of a larger plan to make Shiftnet a platform where providers, agents and communities all earn. More on that in the coming months.

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To everyone who sold a voucher, connected a customer, or reported a rough edge on the way here — thank you. This release is yours. And if you're still watching from the sidelines: tovimba nga toli ku Shiftnet. Join us at shiftnet.africa.