‘Free WiFi essential to revitalise urban centres’ – McGreevy

SDLP Group Leader Councillor Connaire McGreevy has welcomed a sub committee decision of council to begin a free WiFi pilot in Newry.

Speaking after chairing the sub-committee last Tuesday Cllr McGreevy welcomed the move in a positive statement.

McGreevy said: “I have been working with people from across our district for months now discussing the benefits of a free WiFi service. Almost a year ago I requested a sub group of councillors to be set up to develop the idea further.

“That group was recently set up and I am praising the efforts by all involved. Free WiFi in Newry, Warrenpoint, Kilkeel and Crossmaglen is a one way to revitalise our urban centres. It has been trialled in Bangor and is being rolled out in Belfast, Derry, Dublin and Drogheda; so why not have it in our urban centres too.”

He continued, “I hope that all councillors will see the sense in this and the need to pilot one area at a time before rolling out. I will also be pushing the issue of external funding to ensure that this project reaches the largest radius possible.”

Following McGreevy’s recent comments about O2 he said:

“Recently I singled out O2 and other network providers for discriminating against the border area. This project can only help alleviate some of the nuisance experienced as it can be used to access mobile applications such as ‘Viber’ which can provide free phone calls over WiFi networks.”

He added, “Access to WiFi and other communication technologies such as Broadband are going to be essential in developing our area.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on Oct 29 2012. Filed under Community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry