Before 2015 ends, DoST promises free public Wi-Fi

The Department of Science and Technology (DoST) is targeting the end of 2015 to fully implement its free public Wi-Fi nationwide.

Speaking at the House Committee on Appropriations, Undersecretary Louis Napoleon Casambre said the free Wi-Fi program of the DoST is now 25 percent complete after it was launched last July.

The DoST said the free Wi-Fi areas would include plazas, parks, public schools, government offices, hospitals, seaports, airports and other transport terminals.

Casambre said the agency’s free Wi-Fi would be accessed through 7, 118 sites nationwide across 967 municipalities and 43 cities.

The official said DoST would roll out the “Offline Internet for Remote Areas (Oira)” to serve the people in remote areas who do not have access to the internet yet.

He said the Oira to transmit static information from the Internet to far-flung areas to allow people to access information offline such as maps and books.

He said the DoST has removed the 256 kilobytes per second cap on internet access but said that the bandwith capacity remains the same.

Officials of the DoST appeared before the house committee on appropriations on Thursday morning to defend its proposed 2016 budget.

The DoST proposed 2016 budget has increased to P17.9 billion compared to the 17.7 billion in 2015. TVJ

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