The Senate of the Philippines approved the allocation of a whooping ₱3,000,000,000.00 for DOST’s Public Wi-Fi Program as part of the 2015 National Budget.
This means free Wi-Fi hotspots in selected public schools and colleges, public libraries, airports, seaports, train stations, public hospitals, government offices and other public places throughout the country.
Yey, Free Wi-Fi for All!
Before you rejoice though, take note that this program is intended to help farmers in trading, students in studying and researching and the general public in having more communication outlets and connecting us to information that will improve our lives.
Some might abuse this program for their own selfish agenda such as downloading movies or other large files for free in these public Wi-Fi hotspots. I hope DOST will take preventive steps against this problem.
There will also be issues regarding which places should have these Wi-Fi hotspots first. There are already 50,872 sites that have been picked for the first batch.
Lastly, the program got its funding from DBM’s laptop for government employees program. Instead of leasing laptops next year, the government is providing Wi-Fi hotspots first.
