Within three years Beijing will have free access to WiFi (wireless Internet) in all of its districts, reported Beijing Business Today.
Zhang Yu, Deputy Director of Beijing’s Information Technology Office announced the plan at the Wireless City Summit 2008 which just ended.
In July, to service the Olympics, a WiFi signal covered the Second and Third Ring Roads, the CBD, on Financial Street, around Zhongguancun and Wangjing’s Economic and Technological Development Zones.
Unfortunately, the signal was not very good, and nobody at Danwei was ever able to use it to access the Internet (see Danwei post from June this year linked below).
You can still sometimes receive the signal in these areas; look for the WiFi network named ‘CECT-CHINACOMM’.
According to the Beijing Business Today, the plans for free WiFi are being extended:
by 2011 Beijing will become the “largest wireless city in China”…
…At present there are pilot schemes for in the districts of Xuanwu, Chongwen, Chaoyang, Shijingshan, Daxing and Pinggu, in places associated with agriculture, local government offices, and scientific technology.
Furthermore, nearly half of Beijing’s top universities have wireless Internet: Tsinghua university (清华大学) alone has 500 hotspots.
- Beijing Business Today via Techweb (Chinese): Beijing covered in wireless within three years
- Earlier on Danwei: Free wireless Internet in downtown Beijing
- Wireless City Summit 2008 (Chinese): homepage
- Beijing Information Technology Office homepage