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January 16, 2012

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Telco set to triple Wi-Fi hot spots to 20,000

THE number of China Telecom's Wi-Fi hot spots in Shanghai will triple within three years to 20,000 and the speed will also improve greatly, the city's biggest Wi-Fi network provider said yesterday.

In three years, China Telecom's Shanghai branch will have 20,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in the city, up from 7,300 now, mainly in public transport hubs, business centers, universities, hospitals, hotels and entertainment areas. Meanwhile, the average bandwidth will be raised to 100 to 300 megabytes per second (Mbps) from 54 Mbps now, said Shanghai Telecom.

"Wi-Fi represents a city's information technology infrastructure level and it's a key step for the city to establish itself as 'smart city'," said Shanghai Telecom in a statement yesterday.

Shanghai Telecom now provides free Wi-Fi services in some public areas like airports, railway stations and local gyms. It also offers paid services in public places.

China Mobile and China Unicom also provide Wi-Fi services, such as China Mobile's Wi-Fi in Starbucks. But each of them has only 3,000 Wi-Fi spots now, half of Shanghai Telecom's level.

The wider Wi-Fi coverage will also ease dependence on 3G networks, which allows mobile users to choose between Wi-Fi and 3G networks.

The average data usage surged 20 times monthly in the last two years, putting huge pressure on 3G networks, said China Telecom, the sole mobile carrier partner Apple iPhone in the Chinese mainland.

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