South Korea has established free Wi-Fi networks on 35,006 city buses operating across the nation, allowing citizens aboard to access the internet free of charge and reduce their mobile phone bills, the ICT ministry said Monday.
It is the first time in the world that free Wi-Fi services will be provided on all city buses nationwide.
The project was started by the ICT ministry and 16 provincial governments in 2018 and completed the project in October this year.
The objective is to help reduce households' communication bills and help citizens better access the internet.
According to ICT Minister Choi Ki-young, the project is meaningful in that it will help reduce the burden of paying bills for those having difficulty using high-priced subscription packages.
The number of times the free Wi-Fi services were availed on buses reached 420 million between May 2019 and October 2020, which translates into each person in the 51.6 million population using such services eight times.
