DICT: 217 sites activated in Cebu

The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) 7 activated 127 free WiFi sites in Cebu to help the micro, small and medium entrepreneurs (MSMEs) gain access to a wider network.

DICT 7 officer-in-charge Frederick Amores said that they are now in the process of deploying more live sites in public spaces such as parks, seaports, airports, terminals and schools.

“When we have more people able to access the internet, there will be more incentives for them to go online because the market itself is online,” he said.

Currently, the agency is working on putting up additional sites in the countryside.

“We are still in the midst of deployment of free WiFi because the challenge, not just in Cebu but in other places as well, is availability of infrastructure,” he said.

The agency has identified high priority zones and they are coordinating with local government units to activate these sites.

High priority areas include third, fourth and fifth class municipalities, many of which have poor infrastructure. However, he said it was easy to install WiFi in some fifth class municipalities because their locations are viable for the internet lines.

He added that some WiFI areas may also have problems because of the network providers.

“We all know there are some places in the countryside that may not have as much infrastructure as the urban areas, so it’s always a challenge,” he said.

Amores said that the budget for the nationwide public WiFi access was pegged at P3 billion.

The DICT 7 targets to put free public WiFi access areas in all the cities and municipalities of Cebu.

He added that projects were also being undertaken in partnership with Facebook and the National Grid Corporation of the Philippines.

“We should be able to have more bandwidth available to the countryside in partnership with local governments so we’d drastically reduce the cost and increase the speed. That’s what we all want,” he said. /