14 DAY TRIAL // Last March, the Philippines announced they were planning to roll out free Wi-Fi Internet to public places by the end of 2015. Now, the plan seems to have changed, and the service is coming by the end of 2016, but this time coverage has gone up, and Filipino officials are planning to deploy it in half of the country's cities.
Responsible for implementing this plan is the state's Department of Science and Technology's Information and Communications Technology Office (DOST-ICTO), which aims to raise the country's current meager Internet penetration rate of 52% to a higher value by providing free Wi-Fi in public places, so people can experience being connected online, before opting to subscribe to an Internet plan at home.
Additionally, country officials are also hoping this inspirits the local ISPs, which are running extremely old technology, the Philippines being second to last when it comes to Internet speeds in Asia.
Shameful enough, the only state they rank above is Afghanistan, a country ravaged by internal wars for the past decade.
Besides lowly speeds, the country is also one of the places in Asia where Internet prices got out of hand since the get-go, currently costing $18/Mbps, compared to the global average of $5/Mbps.
Filipino officials are hoping that ISPs will upgrade the country's Internet infrastructure
DOST-ICTO hopes this new initiative triggers an arms race when it comes to Internet infrastructure investments, which would see new equipment and landlines installed, ones that can be operated at lower costs than the infrastructure already in place.
For starters, government officials plan to roll out free Wi-Fi in public spaces like hospitals, public squares, parks, schools, malls, airports, or government buildings.
The free Wi-Fi comes with a maximum speed of 256 Kbps, but this should be more than enough to browse the Web and hang out on social media networks.