Wallingford goes Wi-Fi (From Oxford Mail)

Wallingford goes Wi-Fi

1:50pm Saturday 4th September 2010 in

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WALLINGFORD has become the first town in Oxfordshire to install a free Wi-Fi Internet connection to cover the town centre.

The wireless system, set up by the Wallingford Partnership, will let people log on to the Internet for free from cafés, shops, restaurants and park benches.

The signal is available from St Leonard’s Square in the south, to the north end of the Market Place, and from the Riverside at Crowmarsh on the east bank of the River Thames, to the Kinecroft in the west.

More network points are being installed to boost the signal cope with demand.

Partnership chairman Derrick Hoare, pictured showing county and town councillor Lynda Atkins how to use the system, said it was a great achievement for the town to become the first in the county to offer such a service. He said: “We have decided to make it free at the moment, and we may still have some work to do to determine whether we should charge for certain facilities.

“We will be showing shopkeepers how to set up it and put notices in the window letting people know it’s up and running.”

The system has been paid for using some of the £200,000 of funding the partnership secured from the South East England Development Agency and South Oxfordshire District Council last year.