
FAQs
The Government Wi-Fi Programme is an initiative to provide free wireless Internet access to the public in some 350 government premises with high public patronage. These premises include all public libraries, public enquiry service centres, key cultural and recreational centres, job centres, community halls, large parks, and government offices that are frequented by the public. The Government plans to progressively install Wi-Fi facilities at some 120 premises by mid 2008 and another 230 premises by mid 2009.
The new government Wi-Fi facilities will enable the public to access the Internet more conveniently, with more locations available and better geographical coverage. With these new facilities, the public will be able to surf the Web for business, study and leisure, or access government services with greater ease than ever before.
The free Wi-Fi services provided in the public housing estates are not provided by the GovWiFi Programme. They are provided by other commercial IT service provider for public rental housing (PRH) tenants.
Some mobile devices would switch the Internet access service between GPRS/3G and other Wi-Fi services automatically depending on signal strength. If there are more than one wireless or mobile services available, the one with the strongest signal may be connected.
To avoid dispute on connection service charges, you should be aware of the data services you are using and the characteristics of your mobile devices. If you want to avoid connecting to chargeable GPRS/3G or Wi-Fi services unintentionally, you should turn off the Internet access feature of GPRS, 3G and Wi-Fi, as well as disable the feature of automatic connection to these networks. Also, the signal strength of GovWiFi in the location may vary at different spots. Some less powerful mobile devices may have a weak connection at some spots. Please move to areas with stronger Wi-Fi signal in order to have a stable Wi-Fi connection.
You can verify that you are connecting to the GovWiFi service by
clicking "Verify Service" in the GovWiFi landing page
(free.wifi.gov.hk). Please check that a closed lock icon (
) is shown on the browser, and verify that the
certificate is issued by "Hongkong Post e-Cert CA 1" to the domain
"ecert.wifi.gov.hk".