Adelaide city councillor Houssam Abiad has lodged a complaint with the council about the CBD’s ‘Third World-class’ free wi-fi service

VISITORS to Adelaide’s CBD are downloading the equivalent of nearly 300 feature-length movies a day on the city’s free public wi-fi network but critics say the service is unreliable and a turn-off for tourists.

Adelaide City’s Lord Mayor Martin Haese admits there is a need to improve the CBD’s wi-fi service.

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VISITORS to Adelaide’s CBD are downloading the equivalent of nearly 300 feature-length movies a day on the city’s free public wi-fi network, but critics say the service is unreliable and a turn-off for tourists.

As thousands of people descend on the city for the Fringe, Adelaide Festival and Clipsal 500, Adelaide City Council has declared the network is “the best in the nation”.

Its figures show there were 220,000 “connections” to the network last month, which downloaded 12,000 gigabytes of data — equivalent to about 285 movies a day.

But councillor Houssam Abiad, who has lodged a complaint with the council about the performance of the network, said the service was “Third World-class”.

“At the moment I’d say it’s considerably s..., I never log on to it, I never bother,” Mr Abiad said of the citywide service.

“I haven’t meet a person who says it works, it definitely is a problem. If we say we have free Wi-fi in the city, it has to work.”

The State Government and council spent $1.5 million for the Internode-built and operated AdelaideFree service, which includes nearly 200 outdoor wi-fi points providing free access in public places.

The network, together with Internode’s existing network of 100 wi-fi locations, claims to provide coverage for about 97 per cent of the northern CBD from Wakefield and Gouger streets and large parts of North Adelaide and the southern CBD.

Adelaide technology consultant and commentator Richard Pascoe said the service was “terrible”.

“There’s no other word to describe it, people give up,” he said. “I know business people who will turn their wi-fi off when they come into the city.

“We really should have a super-fast network in Adelaide because we have got people coming from overseas ... it’s far too slow for what people expect.”

Council chief information officer Peter Auhl said the council has budgeted $1.5 million over the next two financial years on IT initiatives, including extending the reach of the wi-fi network and its reliability.

He said there were 6.2 million connections to the network last year and popular locations included Rundle Mall and the Central Market.

“To be honest, we didn’t expect this level of activity — it’s unprecedented and it’s the hottest network in Australia,” he said.

“Our network is certainly the best network in the nation ... 220,000 connections in one month is incredible.

“People are wanting the convenience, this is what they expect, particularly tourists and university students.”

Figures show 6.2 million connections were made to the Adelaide CBD’s wi-fi network last year.

Anthony Coles, chair of the Australian China Business Council Tourism Working Group based in Adelaide, said Chinese tourists relied on wi-fi because many did not want to use international roaming.

“Wi-fi is ubiquitous up there, every venue has wi-fi ... and everyone pays for everything by phone,” he said.

“At the moment (Adelaide’s wi-fi) is inconsistent and it’s not a strong enough service.”

Lord Mayor Martin Haese said there was a need to improve the service, which he said was under pressure from growing city population.

“When the system was put in I don’t think we quite realised how popular it was going to be,” he said. “I think we’ve been taken a little bit by surprise by the growth.”

Internode’s website says free public wi-fi access “is a compromise between security and utility”. It recommends that users do not transmit sensitive information unencrypted over any network, “let alone a public wi-fi network”.

Originally published as Adelaide city councillor Houssam Abiad has lodged a complaint with the council about the CBD’s ‘Third World-class’ free wi-fi service