A new single network for Wi-Fi spots

7 April 2015 03:55 am

By Piyumi Fonseka 
Under the programme of providing the free Wi-Fi facility covering all 26 districts in the country, the Foreign Affairs, Telecommunications and IT Ministry will introduce a new single network to access the Wi-Fi service without barriers, Information Communications Technology Agency (ICTA) Programme Manager Gavaskar Subramaniam said yesterday.
Accordingly, the users will not need to use their own network (e.g. Dialog or Mobitel) in accessing the free Wi-Fi service.
“Users could access Internet through the recently installed free Wi-Fi hotspots regardless of network subscription. Fulfilling a pledge given in the 100-day plan of the government, the Telecommunications Ministry will complete the programme at 100 public locations soon,” Subramaniam said.
In the first phase, free Wi-Fi hotspots had been installed at 26 locations covering eight districts including Kandy, Colombo Fort, Polonnaruwa, Matara, Jaffna, Galle, Peradeniya, Katunayake, Ratnapura and Dehiwela recently. 
In setting up the next phases, the demand of the given service and the geographical factors would be considered by the ministry in selecting the new public locations to establish the new Wi-Fi hotspots, Subramaniam said. 
Initially the service was available at a rate of 512 Kb/Sec with a total bandwidth of 100 megabytes for the users.