Free Wi-Fi access sought in tourism-related establishments in QC

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—A Quezon City councilor has proposed requiring all tourism-oriented establishments in the city to provide their customers with free wireless Internet access.

Fifth district councilor Karl Edgar Castelo has drafted an ordinance that would require cafés, restaurants, beer joints, hotels, inns, pension houses, lodging houses, and similar establishments frequented by tourists to provide their patrons with free Wi-Fi access as a value-added service.

A business establishment that would fail to deliver free Wi-Fi service would be fined and slapped with penalties and might even lose its permit to operate.

The draft ordinance was referred, during Monday’s regular session, to the city council’s committees on tourism, on information and communications technology or cyber technology, and on laws, rules and internal government, for further study.

In seeking amendments to the existing ordinance SP-189 S-94 on the operation and establishment of tourism-oriented and tourism-related businesses in Quezon City, Castelo said that the original measure was enacted on April 14, 1994 when “internet connection” was also introduced in the Philippines.”

He explained that “almost 20 years after the enactment of the said ordinance, consumers, particularly in tourism-oriented and tourism-related establishments, have come to expect free wireless internet connection as a value added service.”

The proposed ordinance will obligate all tourism-oriented and tourism-related businesses in to city to provide their clients with a secure free wireless internet connection.

Castelo said that the fines and penalties on business establishments that would fail to comply with the proposed ordinance would be based on the provisions of the 1994 ordinance.