Users across Dubai will be able to access fee Wi-Fi by the end of next year, The National reported.
Wi-Fi UAE, launched last year by Smart Dubai—a government entity charged with overseeing Dubai’s transformation into a smart city—and UAE’s integrated telecommunications firm du in 200 locations in the emirate, is now available across 300 locations.
“Two weeks ago, we saw Dubai’s taxis offer free Wi-Fi and within a year it will be everywhere across the city,” Aisha bin Bishr, director general of Smart Dubai said while addressing Gitex Technology Week, which is on till October 20.
The initiative was initially scheduled to cover 90% of Dubai and Abu Dhabi by the end of next year.
“We hope to see UAE offering free Wi-Fi once the scheme has been tried and tested in Dubai,” Bishr said. “We offer (bandwidth of) 512kbps, which allows people to connect to social media and use WhatsApp, but you will not be able to watch videos or technology which requires higher speeds,” she said.
Besides, bin Bishr said the government’s mobile app DubaiNow will become a one-stop shop for government and private sector services from next year.
DubaiNow works as a platform for 24 government entities offering 55 different services. The app also helps users buy cinema tickets and book a restaurant table.
Over 2,400 retailers have already registered for the app.
In April, Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO) announced it will be testing out technology by equipping 100 street lights with LED-powered internet.
The project is a collaboration between UAE-based technology company Zero.1, Silicon Oasis, and Du.
DSO is a government-owned free zone that facilitates and promotes modern technology based industries.
Zero.1 has been able to manufacture a platform of Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) enabled LED with its IOTA (Intelligent Outdoor Tower Automation) product range which takes the traditional LED street light and adds layers of communications.
Unlike the more traditional Wi-Fi which uses radio waves, the new technology transmits data through LED bulbs switching on and off too fast to be noticed by human eye.
This is why streetlights are the perfect vehicle for it, reportedly giving it the data transmitting potential of up to 224GB per second.
Li-Fi is also capable of boosting network speeds by about a 100 times, making it the cheapest and fastest wireless communication system. It is believed that the technology can yield speeds more than 10 Gbps, allowing an HD film to be downloaded within 30 seconds.
