Free wifi plan for Rotorua CBD
Rotorua District Council is planning to offer free wifi within the CBD as part of measures to revitalise the downtown area.
The council has allocated $60,000 for wifi in the economic projects budget of its long-term plan and is calling for tenders from companies interested in providing the service in Rotorua.
Council economic projects manager Nick Dallimore says the provision of a free public wifi service is integral to the council’s Urban Design Framework programme to upgrade the CBD and the city’s recently developed Sustainable Economic Growth Strategy.
“It means visitors whether on holiday, business or in town for a conference, and local residents, would all have free and instant access to the web from their laptops, tablets and smart phones in most public places in the central city.
“And when they access the web through our wifi connection we would be able to feed them information and promote Rotorua and its services at the same time, so it’s a classic win-win situation.
“Competition for the status of being one of New Zealand’s top tourism destinations is exceptionally strong right now and many other regions have been lifting their game over recent years and investing big dollars in visitor attraction services and facilities.
“Free wifi is a service many have already implemented, so we’re playing catch-up to some extent.”
Mr Dallimore says the provision of free wfi will also provide a vehicle for promoting local events, offering information to locals and visitors, and the potential for commercial promotion based on geographical locations around town.
The council wants to ensure the project is cost-effective and it has a clear preference for identifying a service provider who can offer a quality wifi facility without the council incurring extra ongoing costs or the need for additional council resources, he says.
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Comments and questions7
Its a wonder the RDC can even afford the 60k. Its going to take a few more better ideas to stem the rot that is Rotorua. The place stinks and I'm not talking about the smell. Overpriced rip off motels and hotels, run down and mostly empty. Too many previous investors killed the golden goose by not maintaining properties and the demographic left in town have turned the place into crime city. The maori stuff is tacky ho hum and way too expensive with the price to see a few blow holes not worth the bother. An airfare to Sydney is by far safer, cheaper and more fun.
Rotorua is tacky as it is crime-ridden. RDC need to be giving away the new Apple i5 to go with the free wi-fi, for me to venture to that cess pit.
Looks like Rotorua is the new go-to place for music downloaders now.
It won't work because it's free. This is Rotorua, charge for it and it'll be stolen.
How will they stop all the businesses from hitching a free ride on it?
Anon, anon, anon. and FedUp - clearly you don't live in Rotorua. It's a great city with fantastic natural resources such as the lakes and our awesome MTB trails in the forest.
I'd rather walk down Tutanekai Street than Queen Street at night (and they will both will have free wi fi).
I give a great big sigh every time I hear about a new council driven "Free Wi-Fi" project. Non-technical councillors and their IT staff seem to think that just because you can buy a hotspot at Dick Smith for $100, it should be easy to put Wi-Fi on a city street.
$60k is enough to supply hardware for a few blocks of a city street, if you want it done well by a commercial outfit. But that's just the installation.
Bandwidth costs could exceed that in the first year if the system acquired more than a couple of hundred visitors a day. Maintenance costs in a city environment are not insignificant. For the three years of Wellington's most recent Wi-Fi project CBDFree, the WCC has agreed to pay CityLink around $0.75M. Most of that is for bandwidth and maintenance - and CityLink (unlike most Wi-Fi providers) at least has a field force and their own cherry-picker trucks.
I'm sure a few Wi-Fi vendors will bite, and we'll have some installations and press releases when it's done. Then it'll go down the same route as most other free Wi-Fi projects in New Zealand. Poor service, mostly used by backpackers who spend time to find some shelter in a doorway where they can get signal, and upload their trip photos, stopping to refresh their session and mindlessly click through an advert every 30 minutes.
Rotorua, if you want it done wel, it's going to cost more than $60k.
As disclosure, in the past I've designed and advised on a number of Wi-Fi projects, and am currently helping one that has its bandwidth costs covered long-term by a major corporate sponsor.