DICT to overhaul its free WiFi program; DICT eyes ‘SIM card ng Bayan’ project as potential alternative

PTVPhilippines

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Transcript

00:00Government's free Wi-Fi program is not working as planned or intended, big time.

00:05As such, a major tweak or program makeover is in order that seeks to make this privilege or entitlement

00:12more sustainable as our Harley Valbuena tells us in this report.

00:19The Department of Information and Communications Technology will overhaul its free Wi-Fi program.

00:25This in accordance with President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr.'s directive.

00:29To assure the efficiency of the program which has billions of pesos in allocation.

00:35The free Wi-Fi program seems to be not sustainable.

00:38Because right now we have only 7,000 locations and we're spending 6.5 billion pesos.

00:44The president directed us to look for other alternatives that will make this program sustainable

00:48because it's helping a lot of people.

00:50The DICT cited the SIM card ng Bayan project as a potential alternative for the free Wi-Fi program.

00:57Under this, students and teachers will be given SIM cards

01:01with 25 gigabyte data limit as a subsidy from the government.

01:05Meanwhile, the department said,

01:07Atelco company also offered the cheaper but broader free Wi-Fi service.

01:13Starlink for example is offering only 1.5 billion per year if the contract is for 10 years.

01:19But for 10,000 schools, remember we're spending 6.5 billion for 7,000 schools.

01:25But this one is 10,000 schools at only 1.5 billion at a minimum information rate of 200 Mbps.

01:32In line with this, the president ordered the allocation of 5 billion pesos for the SIM card

01:37ng Bayan project while 2.5 billion pesos will be earmarked for a more efficient type of free Wi-Fi.

01:44According to DICT, 11.2 million devices were already able to connect to the free Wi-Fi

01:50in the past three years.

01:51These are in public schools and state universities and colleges,

01:55remote and geographically disadvantaged areas, municipal government buildings,

02:00and public health facilities.

02:03The DICT, however, assured that despite the overhauling to be implemented this year,

02:08the free Wi-Fi will not stop from extending its scope, especially in schools.

02:14Moreover, once the program's modifications are completed,

02:17the free Wi-Fi sites are expected to reach up to 20,000 locations from the current 7,000 areas

02:25and will also feature faster and free internet connectivity for the public.

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