Free Wireless@SG service organised by the IDA

Delegates to the series of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank meetings held in Singapore in September 2006 and members of the public will enjoy free wireless broadband at Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Suntec City Mall, Raffles City Shopping Centre, CityLink Mall, Millenia Walk and Marina Square Shopping Centre.

The free Wireless@SG service is organised by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) as a lead-up to the nation-wide commercial deployment of Wireless@SG in January 2007, and is active for the whole month of September.

Demonstrating how Wireless@SG will work

This month-long prelude was first revealed by Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications & The Arts and Foreign Affairs Dr. Balaji Sadasivan at the Singapore infocomm Technology Federation's (SiTF) Volunteers' Day. He said, "I hope Singaporeans and our IMF-World Bank friends can make time to enjoy this free Wi-Fi access and experience how infocomm changes the way we work, live, learn and play."

IDA's deputy chief executive Mr Leong Keng Thai also said that IDA was using this project to give Singaporeans a preview of what they can expect with the roll-out of the Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure (Next Gen NII), the plans for which were unveiled in June 2006. "Feedback during this trial is extremely important. We welcome anything that the public can give us on how to improve this service," he added.

Mr Leong Keng Thai explaining how Wireless@SG will benefit Singapore

The 512 kilobytes per second (kbps) free wireless service in September is complemented by infrastructure put in place for the IMF-World Bank meetings by industry partners such as SingTel, Cisco, Oracle, Alcatel, Microsoft, e-Cop.net, Metrologic Asia and UPS Singapore. This includes 12,000 cabling points and 960km of cables. In addition, 30 E-Messaging Kiosks have been installed to allow participants to send and receive e-mail messages.

While wireless hotspots are not new to Singapore, this marks the first time that access on such a wide scale is available for free. Mr Leong hopes that the public will enjoy this free access as a foretaste of things to come next year.

Under the masterplan, hotspots will cover catchment areas within the Eastern, Western and Northern regions of Singapore. These are areas with high population densities, such as the Central Business District, major shopping belts and residential town centres.