Beijing to roll out more public Wi-fi addresses

Beijing's public IP addresses of Wi-Fi will increase by 20,000 to 30,000 each year and fixed Internet users could enjoy 4 megabytes online service by the end of next year, Beijing Daily quoted an official as saying on Wednesday.

Mao Dongjun, a deputy director of Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, said the commission will launch 50-megabyte and 100-megabyte products and online charges will decrease.

According to statistics from the commission, 4.3 million households use Unicom broadband. Thirty percent of those are 2-megabyte users, with the remaining 70 percent using 4 megabytes or more.

Mao said all 2-megabyte user accounts would be canceled by the end of next year, estimating fiber Internet with a bandwidth of 10 megabytes would be provided in 2015.

The city's public Wi-Fi has about 170,000 IP addresses, but a large number are unused because residents don't know how to use them, he added.

Mao also said 4G networks will cover the major areas of the city in 2015 and residents will be able to experience high speed by using mobiles with a 4G card. He added that the charges for 4G services would be less than for 3G.