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TECHNOLOGY juggernaut Google created a bit of a stir in
2005 when it was reported that the company would create
a citywide Wi-Fi mesh for San Francisco. Of course, the
technology then still being nascent—and never mind that
its origins predates Microsoft’s Windows operating
system and The X-Files—only hard-core geeks greeted the
news as if the time and date of the Second Coming had
been announced. Of course, that didn’t stop others from
channeling Google’s aspirations. Did several Metro
Manila mayors—including Taguig City Mayor Freddie R.
Tiñga, if memory serves—not declare on some occasion or
other, and this quite some time ago, that among their
more ambitious plans would be to have their respective
cities Wi-Fi-enabled?
Needless
to say, Google’s Wi-Fi dreams for the city by the bay
has yet to come to pass—despite the billions of dollars
in earnings of the Internet search giant for the first
quarter of 2008 alone—and, as far as I know, none of the
so-called premier hubs in Metro Manila (Makati City?
Ortigas Center? the so-called better part of Taguig?)
have gone into the Wi-Fi zone courtesy of their
respective local governments. Which isn’t to suggest
that Wi-Fi as a technology has been an abject failure.
In fact, Wi-Fi has become standard in much of the
current crop of personal technologies—from desktop and
mobile computers to PDAs and mobile phones—available in
the market, and its success is in no small measure due
to its simplification of complex processes that allow
people to access all kinds of data across local or
remote networks. These days, the first thing I ask about
offshore or out-of-town accommodations is whether the
hotel or resort has Wi-Fi.
GET CONNECTED.
Robinsons
Galleria in Ortigas Center is among the Robinsons Malls
that offers Wi-Fi service for free—no applications to
install, no pop-up ads and nags, no time limit. Go surf
and enjoy.
While a
citywide Wi-Fi mesh remains pretty much a dream around
these parts and elsewhere, establishments big and small
are now providing consumers Wi-Fi access, some for free
and most others for a fee and then some. Belonging to
the former is
Robinsons
Malls,
which began providing wireless access to the Internet
gratis as far back as June 2006, initially at the East
Wing of its flagship Robinsons Galleria in Ortigas
Center. “At the time, the East Wing had just been
launched and we wanted to direct traffic toward the area
so that our mallgoers would discover the new tenants,
the new retail experiences the new wing offered,”
recalls Mel Cabreros, corporate IT director of Robinsons
Land Corp. Quickly recognizing the increasing tech-savvyness
of the public in general and its market in particular,
he proposed to management to have the wing Wi-Fi-enabled.
“We’re fortunate that Digitel [Digital
Telecommunications Phils. Inc.] is a sister company of
Robinsons, so the infrastructure was already there, the
bandwidth necessary to power the entire wing was already
there, and, of course, that allowed us to fast-track the
implementation of Wi-Fi access in the area.”
From the
get-go, Robinsons decided to offer Wi-Fi as a free
service to mallgoers—no shoppers club to join, no
joining fee to pay, no pesky ads to suffer through, no
potentially harmful application to install before one
can use the Wi-Fi service. “The decision to make the
service free was of course strategic,” says Cabreros.
“We wanted to drive mall traffic to the new wing, and it
wouldn’t have worked as successfully as it has had there
been too many conditions attached to the service. Then
as now, whenever a mallgoer accesses our Wi-Fi network,
he is first brought to the Robinsons Malls home page and
from there he can surf the Internet, check his e-mail
and even download stuff as he would using a paid
service.” With Wi-Fi access initially available in the
East Wing areas that were ideal for people to park
themselves and their Wi-Fi-ready gadgets, Robinsons
handily succeeded in developing a market for the cafés
and restaurants that had opened for business in the new
wing. Just how successful was the Wi-Fi campaign? As
Cabreros puts it, the Wi-Fi service, following a flurry
of earnest requests from similar tenants in the other
areas of the sprawling mall, has since extended beyond
the East Wing.
Robinsons, of course, is not unique in deploying free
Wi-Fi connectivity to serve its business interests.
According to Wikipedia, “organizations and businesses
such as airports, hotels and restaurants often provide
free [Wi-Fi] hot spots to attract or assist clients.
Enthusiasts or authorities who wish to provide services
or even to promote business in a given area sometimes
provide free Wi-Fi access.” According to the web site of
global Wi-Fi hot spots locator JiWire, there are at
least 27 establishments offering free Wi-Fi service, and
the number—conservative, to be sure—can only be growing.
No doubt included in that number are the other Robinsons
Malls that have since followed Robinsons Galleria’s
lead: Robinsons Manila, Robinsons Forum and Robinsons
Metro East in Mega Manila, Robinsons Dasmariñas in
Cavite, Robinsons Starmills in Pampanga, Robinsons Lipa
in Batangas, and Robinsons Bacolod. Free Wi-Fi service
is also coming soon to Robinsons Otis in Paco, Manila,
and Robinsons Cebu. Adds Cabreros, “Besides increasing
foot traffic to certain areas of our malls, the Wi-Fi
service also helps our business flexibility, giving our
operational guys—say, in advertising and
promotions—increased capability in assisting our tenants
for special events within the mall that would benefit
from such wireless connectivity.”
More
important, Cabreros assures, “The Wi-Fi service that
Robinsons Malls provides to its tenants and guests for
free will continue to evolve according to the bandwidth
demands. If there is a need to increase coverage or
bandwidth, we will do so, as we constantly monitor the
network traffic in each mall where our Wi-Fi service is
offered. That said, we also assure that we don’t
regulate which places in the Internet mallgoers visit,
or how long they are connected. We believe it is up to
our individual partner-tenants to devise ways that would
make the free Wi-Fi service that we offer best serve
their business interests.”
Given
that the Wi-Fi plans of city governments remain a long
ways off, your inner geek no doubt routinely indulges in
the wishful thinking of living inside a Wi-Fi-enabled
mall. After all, much of what little is left of your
life away from the computer is already spent there. |
