Free Wi-fi or Paid Wi-fi in Penang

Penang government nowadays are very proud of providing free WIFI in the state. They even took up advertisement in the Chinese local newspaper.

However, when SEDA put up a paid advertisement on the explanation on feed in tariff, some politician from the same party who are ruling the Penang state condemning such effort as wasting public money.

However, what we want to highlight is that there is some disturbing information related to so called Penang Free Wi-Fi in Penang.

The state seen has not exercising its much appreciated open tender policy in the RM8.5 million ‘Free Wi-Fi’ project awards.

The Penang state government has promise to practice open tender system on all state contracts.

However, this second Penang Free Wi-Fi project has in fact set a bad precedent for future projects.

An open tender system was not offered for the second phase of the Wi-Fi project as the state government wanted a reputable company to take charge.

It is a well-known open secret that who they want to gives too -- REDtone.

This is due to the fact that REDtone International Bhd has willing to provide and maintain 750 free Wi-Fi hotspots in public areas in the state without any funding from the state government under the first phase. They get their so called return through advertisement.

However, under phase two, the state government is paying RM8.49mil to install 750 free Wi-Fi hotspots over the next five years in Penang.

The question is why state need to come in and paid RM8.49 million to installed 750 free Wi-Fi hotspots if at the first place such cost could be recovered by REDtone by selling their space for advertising in the spot?

To make it worst, why don't they has open tender for the second phase? Maybe by having open tender, the cost could be further reduce?

“Penang Free Wi-Fi” project was launched by Lim in Sept 2008 and was aimed at turning the state into the country’s first free wireless broadband area.

The project was different from the federal government-initiated High Speed Broadband (HSBB) project.

Is has been the Pakatan Rakyat and Lim Guan Eng promises to has open tender in all state contracts. Why didn't he do it for this free wifi hotspots?

Promise is still a promise. You just can't have exceptional rule for this when the promises already being made. When you talk about open tender, it should be implemented all, not selectively because you will be considered failed to practice the policy.