Manila wants more public places to offer free Wi-Fi

MANILA, Philippines–After installing Wi-Fi hotspots in bus stops throughout the city, Manila government officials want to make the capital city the San Francisco of the Philippines—at least in terms of making free Wi-Fi available in public places.

Vice Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso has said that the city government, together with private telecommunications firms, is hard at work building the infrastructure that will provide free wireless connectivity in public areas throughout Manila.

“As we speak, we are building antennas and laying down fiber optic cables in the right places,” Domagoso said in an interview last week. “Hopefully, we could launch in January next year before Pope Francis arrives in the Philippines for his papal visit.”

He added that the project was an extension of the Wi-Fi hotspots installed by the city government in bus stops and waiting sheds. The bus stops, together with the Wi-Fi hotspots, were built at no cost to the city government courtesy of a public-private partnership.

“With this project, like the bus stops, we will also spend nothing as a number of companies in the private sector agreed to do this for us. The bus stops are proof of a concept and so we will roll this out on a wide scale now,” he said.

According to him, the Wi-Fi hotspots will be introduced in the Ermita-Malate tourism district on a pilot basis. It will then be expanded to the other districts of the city, especially in impoverished areas.

“This is part of our vision to make people in the City of Manila more connected and productive. Imagine, aside from our population, we have 1.2 million people going to Manila for the day. This convenience will allow them to communicate and work or stay productive while on the road,” he said.

Domagoso expressed hope that, in the long run, the free wireless Internet connectivity would put Manila at par with other cities in terms of technology.

“We want to see ourselves in the league of San Francisco and New York where free Internet is provided through Wi-Fi by Google. We’re still far off from that but at least that’s the dream we are chasing,” he said.