TO provide more convenience to its shoppers, SM City Cebu launched last week its free wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) connection that will already cover the entire mall by tomorrow.

This “free added customer service” will enable shoppers to access the Internet through their Wi-Fi-capable laptops and mobile devices anywhere within the mall’s premises.

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The Wi-Fi connection has a bandwidth capacity of 8 megabit per second that could accommodate 200 users simultaneously or approximately 1,000 users per day.

Last Friday, the service was launched at SM City Cebu Northwing and Cyberzone, and simultaneously in the SM malls in Bacolod and Iloilo.

As of Friday, there were 13 SM malls that already have Wi-Fi connection since this service was first installed in SM Marikina last February.

The target, according to SM Cyberzone operations manager Joanne Abrogar, is to install Wi-Fi connection in all of the 36 SM malls nationwide by October this year.

SM City Cebu assistant mall managers Maria Teresa Mempin and Van Aberia assured mall tenants that this new mall service will benefit them eventually.

Connection

Abrogar noted that the foot traffic in other SM malls with free WiFi connection either doubled or increased significantly.

The management is expecting the same thing to happen in SM City Cebu, which has an average foot traffic of more than 100,000 per day on weekdays and more than 200,000 per day on weekends.

The SM City Cebu management disclosed that they have not yet received any negative comments or reactions from tenants offering Wi-Fi connection or engaged in the Internet café business.

Ability

Abrogar said that Ne-topia Internet Café will not be affected by the new mall service since it has a different business model and is more into gaming. It also has the ability to cater to shoppers who have no Wi-Fi capable devices.

SM Supermalls part-nered with Internet service provider Philippine Global Communications Inc. (PhilCom) for the Wi-Fi connection of the malls.