Public Wi-Fi is fast becoming a social norm. There are plenty of public kiosks available in the world which offers free Wi-Fi to the general public. The trend is set to hit Pakistan too as the district administration of Multan has proclaimed to provide free Wi-Fi to the people of Multan, reported by Samaa.
Availability and locations
The service of free Wi-Fi in Multan will be available from the first week of November next month. As many as 30 devices have been placed in city’s various locations. Some of the locations include art council, damdama, ghanta ghar, kachehri and a few hospitals. It is expected that thousands of individuals would be benefitted with free Wi-Fi service.
A lot of credit should be given to the district administration of Multan for their initiative. It indicates that they are well aware of 21st century challenges and trends.
Challenges and benefits
The biggest question is how the public will react to this development. It remains to be seen whether the people of Multan will make a fair use to this service. This internet infrastructure will be deployed to assist the people. However, even in developed western cities like New York, people misuse this service. Additionally, people in India mainly use public Wi-Fi to watch sexually explicit content.
Another big challenge is since the service will be accessible to everyone, terrorists will also to able to use free Wi-Fi while staying at key locations. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority does discontinue the telecom service on vital occasions but it will be important to see if these public Wi-Fi spots will also see a closure during key festivals.
When there are challenges, there are advantages too of a certain technology. Having the facility of Wi-Fi at museums and hospitals will be a big plus for any city. To ensure high bandwidth networks with a certain limit on data for each device, the administration of a particular city will have to be vigilant.
Dubai Airport follows on the same line. They let the users use the public Wi-Fi for a very limited time period. Later, the user is asked to pay for uninterrupted Wi-Fi. If a user pays then he is exposed to access a private Wi-Fi network which is generally reserved for such users.
Moving forward
There is no confirmation whether this service will be implemented by other big cities of Pakistan. Moreover, setting up public Wi-Fi devices in cities like Karachi and Lahore would be tough. However, the administration of Islamabad can definitely work on this model.
The speed of the Wi-Fi devices in Multan is not yet confirmed neither communicated. Things will be much clearer once it becomes available from the first week of November.
Do you think this is a good step from the district administration of Multan?
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