Singapore Exceeds Target Number of Free Wi-Fi Hotspots with over 20,000 Hotspots Island-wide

The Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) has shared that Singapore has now over 20,000 free public Wi-Fi hotspots island-wide under the Wireless@SG initiative by the Singaporean Government, surpassing its target two years back, as shared in a report by the Straits Times.

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Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information and Transport Janil Puthucheary had shared at the Committee of Supply debate in 2016 that the number of Wirreless@SG hotspots would reach 20,000 by 2018. At the time, there were around 10,000 hotspots in Singapore then.

Singapore Exceeds Target Number of Free Wi-Fi Hotspots with over 20,000 Hotspots Island-wide

More than 20,000 Free Wi-Fi Hotspots Set Up all over Singapore

Dr Janil had also approximated surfing speeds for Wireless@SG would reach up to 5Mbps by the end of 2016, which the IMDA commented as the “minimum speed” now.

The IMDA further shared that the average speed for all public Wireless@SG hotspots is over 30 Mbps, depending on user density at a given area.

With average speeds of over 30 Mbps, free public Wi-Fi hotspots in Singapore are now almost twice faster than 4G speeds, which range from 16.7 Mbps to 18.6 Mbps.

Singapore Exceeds Target Number of Free Wi-Fi Hotspots with over 20,000 Hotspots Island-wide

Majority of the free Wireless@SG hotspots are located in public spaces with high footfall. These places include Hawker centres, community centres, libraries, government buildings, as well as a number of seniors’ activity centres and family service centres.

Acccording to the IMDA, there are over 2.5 million Wireless@SG users which avail this service on a monthly basis, a 5 per cent increase from 2016’s user numbers.

According to the President and co-founder of security solutions firm V-Key, Mr Joseph Gan, connections over public Wi-Fi access points such as Wireless@SG are generally safe due to encryption applied by most social media websites and browsers, which has become security norm nowadays, due to the heightened awareness regarding cyber threats and attacks all over the world.

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