35,000 Buses Nationwide Offer Free Data Streaming

35,000 City Buses
Free Wi-Fi Installation
Integrated Management System
Will Improve User Convenience

[Asia Economy Reporter Koo Chae-eun] With free Wi-Fi now available on over 35,000 city buses nationwide, the Moon Jae-in administration's pledge to reduce communication costs is expected to have a significant impact. The government estimates that the economic benefits gained by citizens using free data on buses will amount to approximately 220 billion KRW over the next three years.

On the 14th, the Ministry of Science and ICT, in collaboration with the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee, held the 'National Bus Wi-Fi Deployment Performance Report Meeting' to announce the launch of free data on city buses nationwide.

At the event, Minister Choi Ki-young of the Ministry of Science and ICT stated, "In the non-face-to-face era caused by the spread of COVID-19, public Wi-Fi is an essential means to alleviate citizens' concerns about communication costs," adding, "The government will continue to expand public Wi-Fi so that citizens can use data without worrying about communication expenses in the era of hyper-connectivity and intelligence."

The city bus Wi-Fi deployment project has been carried out by the Ministry of Science and ICT since 2018, in cooperation with 16 local governments until October this year, as part of the 'Korean New Deal Policy' to reduce household communication expenses and improve communication convenience for citizens.

Accordingly, the number of city buses equipped with free Wi-Fi increased from 4,200 in May 2019 to over 27,000 in January this year. From November, when the third phase of the deployment project was completed, free Wi-Fi became available on 35,006 city buses

(29,100 buses deployed by the government, 5,906 buses deployed independently by local governments).

The number of people using Wi-Fi on city buses has also steadily increased. According to the Ministry of Science and ICT, from May 2019 to October 2020, over 18 months, the data usage on city bus Wi-Fi amounted to approximately 16,000 terabytes (TB). On average, each bus used 55.3 gigabytes (GB) per month, and about 4,540 buses (16.7%) used more than 100 gigabytes of traffic monthly. As the number of Wi-Fi-equipped city buses increased, the number of users surged 11.3 times compared to the previous year.

A Ministry of Science and ICT official stated, "We plan to establish continuous operational policy measures for the bus Wi-Fi project with local governments nationwide by the first half of next year," adding, "We will strengthen quality management through an integrated management center to ensure there are no inconveniences in use."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.