For more than 230,000 people who are riding via the MRT-3 their daily commute just got a lot informative, entertaining and a lot less boring. Thanks to the Edsa Free Wifi project spearheaded by the National Telecommunications Commission and the Department of Information and Communications Technology. This project, of course, would not have been made possible without collaborating with other companies and agencies both in the public and private sectors. The telco companies involved were PLDT, Smart and Globe. Government agencies and other private corporation were also involved such as the MMDA, DPWH, Light Rail Transit Authority, the DOTr MRT 3, Metro Rail Transit Development Corp.,Light Rail Manila Corp., Metro Manila Development Authority, Manila Electric Co., Philippine Reclamation Authority, the local government units of Makati, Mandaluyong, Pasay and Quezon City, and A&A.

Wifi EDSA for Everyone

With the goal of providing free wifi for everyone, the NTC and DICT opted to have this phase of the project to be installed in an area where there is a huge volume of commuters who are also internet users. The target of the EDSA wifi project is to serve free wifi within the 24 kilometers area of EDSA.

Testing the EDSA Free Wifi

To know how reliable and how fast the Free Wifi is, the National Telecommunications Commission with the use of the OOKLA Speedtest, tested the internet speed on July 6 and 7. Their test yielded the download speed of 156.6 Mbps and the upload speed of 135.8 Mbps. The Ortigas station, on the other hand, recorded the highest download speed of  325.48 Mbps while the highest upload speed was recorded in Magallanes clocking at 310.57 Mbps.

The Edsa Wifi project is seen to be the first step towards the governments’ serious conviction on providing the people with free access to the online world.