Penang Govt Clarifies That Free WiFi is For All

Published: Sunday March 20, 2011 MYT 4:34:00 PM
Updated: Sunday March 20, 2011 MYT 5:09:33 PM


GEORGE TOWN: The state government has denied reports that it excluded three non-Pakatan Rakyat parliamentary constituencies from its free WiFi initiative.

State Telecommunications Task Force chairman Jeff Ooi claimed that his statement on the matter had been 'twisted.'

“We were only telling the public about the hotline which they can call if they are still unable to log on to the service, but these news reports that came out are blatant lies,” he said at a press conference Sunday.

Ooi, who is Jelutong MP, said if the WiFi initiative was politically-driven, there would not be any hotspots in Bayan Baru where he alleged there were ‘defectors’.

Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said the state was working on a joint-venture to provide another 750 hotspots for free.

He said the 750 hotspots provided earlier were installed by Redtone which relied on advertising revenue to get a return on their investments and capital outlay.

“They targeted places which would have the greatest number of users and commercial exposure to increase their advertising revenue, and those mainly low coverage were residential areas,” he said.

It was reported that a minister had described the move to exclude the three parliamentary constituencies - Kepala Batas, Tasik Gelugor and Nibong Tebal as “dangerous and childish”.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Economic Planning Unit) Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop said the move was dangerous because if Pakatan Rakyat took control of the Federal Government, it might adopt a similar policy and sideline states that supported Barisan Nasional.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/3/20/nation/20110320164143&sec=nation