Foreign firms eyed for free Wi-Fi project

THE Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) wants to tap foreign companies, with the help of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), to hasten the deployment of free Wi-Fi nationwide.

The domestic telecommunications industry, acting DICT chief Eliseo Rio Jr. said in a Facebook post on Monday, does not have the capacity to deliver the government’s promise of free Wi-Fi.

“While the government has the funds to pay the subscription costs for say 50 megabits per second committed information rate bandwidth in SUCs (state universities and colleges) and other public places, our telecommunication industry just can’t deliver in many of these locations,” Rio said, referring to criticism that the DICT was slow in implementing the Free W-Fi law of 2017.

“Government must therefore invest in telecommunication infrastructure to pursue these programs and not merely depend on local commercial telcos,” he added.

Dominant telcos PLDT and Globe Telecom, Rio also said, do not see free Wi-Fi as part of their business models, which he described as focused on attracting the “most paying subscribers.”

“The lessons learned here is that at present, our commercial telcos, specially the giants Globe and PLDT/Smart are not geared to providing Wi-Fi hotpots with sufficient bandwidth in public places,” he said.