It is unclear how this service is being built-out and provisioned since there seems to be no contractual item in the CRC agendas since the original analysis. With systems in other cities being built for free by Google, Microsoft, and other vendors it will be interesting to see who's making money on this deal.
Hotel owners in and around the test area are known to be bitching vociferously to council staff about the plan. With hotels in and around the test area charging rates starting at $12.95/hour (some of the highest rates in the world) for in most cases appallingly slow service, they are going to see the loss of a major income spinner. Several in the "old boy's network" have demanded council ensure their hotels are left out of the wifi footprint so they can continue this gouge. Easier said than done.
Now all we need to do is get the Cairns Airport to stop being greedy bastards and open their wifi to be freely used. As are airports around the world, including the technological capital of Australia, Darwin. The Chinese arrive in Cairns from their country, only to find our hands outstretched the moment they step off the plane, for what their airports give us as part of their service. Not a good start to their tour of FNQ.
19 comments:
why not whole CBD area it help spread users in many areas is CBD including the "little " used city place ....
Backpackers have free camping, showers and other personal amenities in and around the cbd, why not free WiFi also.
Wheres Shanghia he'd have something to say as he loves Chinese burns.
So who pays for the internet useage? The ratepayers?
Hope they extend it out to Mooroobool!
I do not think council should do this. The decision was made to privatise telecommunications so government should have no role in provision of this service. If they do it should only be city ratepayers that get charged for it. If hotel want to ripp people off they hey welome to capitalism.
So it is the ratepayers paying for the privilege of the tourists to use it. How much will this cost us? Whatever happened to internet cafes?? Why can't the backpackers and so on use those?
Most people get around the hotel rip-off by using 3G services. Any smart phone these days has the ability to create a personal wifi hotspot. I am surprised the service offered by hotels is lucrative at all.Almost like hotel phone services. Who uses them?
Yes Jethro, the ratepayers will foot the bill. Lets hope we get to see the total cost after the trial is over.
For a tourist town I think its worth a trial, first time I have agreed with this council.
I shouldn't have to pay for tourist's wifi anymore than I buy them stamps for their postcards? Isn't it enough that I provide them with a free Esplanade water-hole?
Stretch it out to Westcourt, we have loads of tourists
Anonymous 17:38
I must admit I've made the visit to Westcourt myself to experience the famed great vacant shopping centre - perhaps it could be snapped up cheap and remodeled as an Entertainment Precinct.
How to revive the CBD: all Cairns residents scrap their home internet service and catch a Sunbus into town to use Council’s free one; the Sunbus service is made free too.
Give the backpackers nothing. They are unwelcome dirty foreigners!
I performed a little Google - 12% of all websites are pornographic, 25% of all search engine requests are for pornography, and 42.7% of internet users view porn.
We can only hope users of this free service do it in the privacy of their own Wicked campers.
Perhaps the cost of the service could be offset against increased tissue sales.
A shop owner on Grafton told me that backpackers come into his shop, rifle through all the greeting cards, find the one that they want, then take a photo of it on their iphone, then send a picture of the card to their nearest and dearest.
Forget the stamps......
wifi has to be free as it is so slow.
Some people should set an alarm and wake up. We all are living in 2013 not 1820. Free WIFI,Just put Cairns on the map,this is called EVOLUTION, and at least our tax payer money for once are used for some locally badly needed infrastructures. Doesn't go to some island, you could not even pinpoint on a geographical map. It really get Cairns a par to other similar cities around the world, were free WIFI is certainly not a new notion abroad
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