Doubts over future of city’s free WiFi

Beijing plans to add more areas to its existing free public Wi-Fi service, the city's economic commission announced Tuesday.

The commission claimed that so far, popular spots like Xidan, Wangfujing, Sanlitun and Zhongguancun are covered by the service, the Beijing Evening News reported Wednesday.

However, a telecom expert told the Global Times that in the long term, sustaining a large-scale free Wi-Fi project will be difficult because of high maintenance costs.

A female media officer surnamed Gao, from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, told the Global times Wednesday that in addition to the areas already covered, they are planning to include the Shichahai and Nanluoguxiang areas in Dongcheng district later this year.

"We now have 118,000 wireless access points scattered across town," she said.

The commission's free public Wi-Fi project is called My Beijing, which is the name to search for to log into the service. The installation and operation is shared by the Beijing branches of China's main telecom operators, China Unicom and China Mobile.

Zhao Da, the section director of Beijing Radio Administration Bureau, a government organization that approves applications for public outdoor Wi-Fi installation, said the telecom companies still need to apply to install public Wi-Fi access points, although he would not specify what that entails.

"They still need to get our approval, whether the Wi-Fi services are free to the public or not," he said.

Zhao also noted that they would not be responsible for any operational issues once the installations are approved.

"To thoroughly cover popular spots in Beijing, operators like China Unicom will need to build a lot of Wi-Fi access points, since each only has a range of one to two hundred meters," Zhao said.

In Sanlitun Village, Chaoyang district, an area which is covered by the free Wi-Fi service, some visitors complained the system was not very effective.

Dylan Lawyn, a businessman from the US, told the Global Times that sometimes he managed to connect with Wi-Fi in public areas, but the speed was pretty slow.

"But I think the Wi-Fi problem should be solved quickly with Beijing's fast development," he said.

"Everyday I need to handle some business with my phone or iPad. Wi-Fi should be included in the government's infrastructure plan," he said.

A tourist from Greece, who did not give his name, said he had tried to get a Wi-Fi connection in Sanlitun but stopped after noticing the signal was always unstable.

"We live in an information age and it's unbelievable that an international large-scale city like Beijing puts less effort into constructing Wi-Fi," he noted.

"A larger area with Wi-Fi coverage surely benefits people a lot," he said.

Dong Yumei, the director of the development department of the central business district (CBD) management administration, told the Global Times that the numbers of free Wi-Fi access points are increasing along with the rising number of users.

But maintenance costs for the free Wi-Fi access points in the CBD alone is around one million yuan ($0.16 million) annually, paid for by Chaoyang district government, said Dong.

Xiang Ligang, secretary-general of the 3G Industry Alliance and a telecom expert, said that the core issue for free public Wi-Fi is the high cost.

"As far as I know, the government may pay the bill at the launch of the service, but after that it's up to the [mobile telecom] operators," he said.

"Without strong financial backing, free public Wi-Fi won't run smoothly or be sustainable for long," Xiang noted.

Given the costs of establishing and maintaining a Wi-Fi network is the same as that of setting up 3G networks, operators are unwilling to be involved in this kind of free public service due to the high costs, Zhongguancun Online, an IT information website, posted in October, 2011.

China Unicom Beijing office refused to comment on this issue Wednesday, and China Mobile could not be reached.