Monmouth, Wales: A City of Free WIFI

The town of Monmouth, Wales, is relatively modest in size with a population under 10,000, but the few residents who live here may be the recipients of an enviable perk not available to many metropolis dwellers – free WiFi.

Monmouth’s city council has previously made headlines for embarking on the project, Monmouthpedia, the first wiki-project that aims to serve as an ongoing encyclopedic source that details an entire city. In the spirit of free information, city council would like to grant all of their residents and visitors free WiFi.

The city council is currently working on financing the free Internet access for the entire city. Cath John, the assistant chief executive of CMC2, the interest company working with Monmouth’s city council on this project, said in an article: "We have just released a tender to obtain quotes to make Monmouth town completely WiFi enabled. We don't have the costs yet but we are talking to Welsh Government about the possibility of attracting some funding. Our aim is that everyone in the town will have unlimited free web access. We aim to have this ready for this April when Monmouthpedia will be launched as the world's first Wikipedia town."

Serving as the world’s first wiki-town must come with some pressure. The amount of data collected will depend on those who contribute. The more participants engaged in the project, the more data will be gathered.

According to industry experts, geotags will enable potential tourists to take a virtual tour beforehand, and QR coding will label businesses, museums, and other institutions around the city. These two applications make the project mobile-friendly. But what better way to encourage participation than to grant everyone free WiFi? Kellie Beirne of Monmouth’s City Council states, "Giving free WiFi in the town is just one way we want to support people in Monmouth to take part.”

"Here at the council we're really pushing to get the best out of the digital world, so we are supporting Monmouthpedia as much as we can."