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How #CBRfree Stacks Up to other Free Wi-Fi Services in Canberra

As the use of mobile devices has increased, so too have the number of public Wi-Fi hotspots available.

According to the Australian Communications and Media Authority, 70 per cent of Australian adults access the internet with mobile phones, while 30 per cent use tablets to do so.

With Australians becoming more technology reliant in the last few years, the use of Wi-Fi hotspots has “increased six-fold.

In an attempt to make Canberra more digital, the city is busy rolling out #CBRfree, a Canberra-wide free Wi-Fi hotspot service that allows users to “access…250 megabytes per day for unlimited sessions of up to 24 hours”. This will be Australia’s biggest “free outdoor public Wi-Fi network”.

Below are some of the locations for the service that is estimated to be completed by June 2015.

While this is a new and exciting introduction to Canberra, it is worth taking a look at how this would compare to some of the free Wi-Fi services that already exist in the city.

Westfield Belconnen is one place that supplies shoppers with free Wi-Fi. It currently does not have a limit on the amount of data downloaded but the service is very slow. However, improvement is on the way. Westfield has signed up with Optus to launch free Wi-Fi in 21 centres across Australia. This will provide customers with one gigabyte of free Wi-Fi over three hours every day. This service is set to be rolled out and installed this year.

The ACT Public Libraries also have free Wi-Fi services inside the building for anyone wanting to use it. It has no limit and speed depends on how many are using it at the time.

McDonald’s is another well-known location for providing free Wi-Fi in some of its restaurants. It does not have a limit but it is rather slow as a result of many people using it. It is also known to cut off after a while.

The Canberra Centre in Civic has a free Wi-Fi service as well, with hotspots by the digital directories located throughout the centre. Requests were made to the centre for more information about the service but they did not respond.

When comparing these free Wi-Fi services with #CBRfree, it looks like #CBRfree will be able to supply Canberrans with a better free Wi-Fi service.

This is because it is not limited to buildings, gives you a good amount of data and allows you to access it multiple times throughout the day or until you reach your daily limit.

However, the true test will come when the rollout has been finalised and Canberrans have full access to it. Until then, the project looks promising.

By Friedel Marquardt

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