The FREE Wifi Project in EDSA

When President Rodrigo Duterte promised on improving the quality of internet access in the country, I was very much excited. I was very excited about having faster internet connection as well as access to free wifi all over the Philippines.

The fulfillment of this promise started last year wherein free Wi-fi in many high traffic locations across the Philippines, such as malls, hospitals and airports were available. And just recently, the FREE Wifi Project in EDSA was launched by the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) and the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

Free Wi-Fi is now available in all stations of the Metro Rail Transit Line 3 (MRT-3). Commuters have now a better way to pass time and don’t worry much about traffic jam as they are now able to access FREE wifi. According to DICT, there were a total of 230,000 of the 444,044 daily MRT-3 commuters access and connect to the EDSA Free Wi-fi during peak hours. MRT stations with the heaviest usage of FREE wifi are TAFT Avenue, North Avenue, Cubao, Ayala, Shaw Boulevard and Boni Avenue. 

To ensure that commuters are getting a good wifi speed, NTC have conducted a number of speed tests using the OOKLA Speedtest last July 6 and 7. The results showed the average download and upload speeds of 156.6 Mbps and 135.8 Mbps respectively. Ortigas station has the fastest download speed of 325.48 Mbps and Magallanes with the highest upload speed at 310.57 Mbps. 

The target coverage of EDSA Free Wifi is 24 kilometers of EDSA and intends to cover the entire street level of EDSA by October of this year. The EDSA Free Wifi Project is in collaboration with NTC, DOTr MRT3, Metro Rail Transit Development Corp., Light Rail Transit Authority, Light Rail Manila Corp., Metro Manila Development Authority, Department of Public Works and Highways, Manila Electric Co., Philippine Reclamation Authority, the Local Government Units of Makati, Mandaluyong, Pasay and Quezon City, A&A, PLDT-Smart and Globe Telecom. 

I am hoping that through the success of this project, a full implementation of a FREE wifi access will be made available to the entire Philippines soon.