South Korea’s Seoul city will be expanding its free Wi-Fi network service across the city to cover 100 percent public and residential areas, the city government has announced. The rollout of the free Wi-Fi service to cover the entire city is expected to be completed by 2022.

With an aim to provide free Wi-Fi access to the city’s residents and visitors, the city government has confirmed that the current free Wi-Fi service, which already covers 31 percent of the city, will be expanded to cover 100 percent of key public areas and residential areas by the year 2022.

The report reveals that the plan is to cover around 326 sq. km. of the city which includes areas that have been categorized as relevant to everyday life, such as parks, parking lots and recreational sites. Do note that places like individual households, schools, factories and warehouses are excluded from the plan.

The city is reportedly planning to set up 23,750 wireless access points by the end of year 2022, which represents triple the numbers than the current wireless access points which stands at 7,420.

The installation of new free wireless access points will begin with public venues such as bus stops and the public transportation system. It’s noteworthy that Seoul city first opened up its Wi-Fi network to the public in 2011 and has been increasing wireless access points across the city since then.

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The idea of increasing free Wi-Fi coverage in the city is a part of the city’s 102.7 billion-won (approximately $859 million) plan to build a smart network that encompasses Wi-Fi and internet of things (IoT) technology. It is expected to enable various IoT services such as smart parking services and safety services for the elderly living alone.

Of the total budget mentioned, 47 percent of that will be used to expand the public Wi-Fi network while the remaining 52 percent will be flagged for building wired and wireless telecommunications infrastructure and developing IoT technology.

According to the estimate of the officials, when the plan is completed, it will cut annual mobile charges by 3.87 trillion won for around 6.12 million users who use 9.6GB of internet data on average each month.

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(Source)

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