Programme Information

• What is the Government Wi-Fi Programme?
  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.
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• Are residential and commercial areas covered?
  No, only selected government premises will be covered.
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• How can the public benefit?
  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.
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• Are the Wi-Fi services provided in the public housing estates part of the Government Wi-Fi Programme?
  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.
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• I was using the free GovWiFi service. Why I was charged unconsciously to commercial services (e.g. GPRS/3G or other Wi-Fi service)?
  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.
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• How can I avoid falling into the trap of using other commercial wireless services unintentionally?
  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.
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• How can I verify that the connection is GovWiFi service?
  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".
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