State Public Works and Rural and Regional Development Committee chairman Hasni Mohammad said teenagers were reported to have hung out at WiFi hotspots at Kempas Permai PPR and Johor Bahru City Square until way past midnight.

There were also two reports on vandalism at WiFi hotspots at the Taman Cendana public housing project (PPR) and Kempas Permai PPR, although repairs were immediately carried out by the service provider.

Hasni said this in reply to Ee Chin Li (DAP-Tangkak), who wanted to know the level of public response for Johor’s WiFi service at the state assembly sitting yesterday.

Hasni said the free WiFi service which was launched on Aug 30, 2015, at 134 locations statewide had received an extraordinary response from the people.

He said the service received an average of 5,660 new users monthly, bringing the total of registered users to 293,717 so far.

“The allocation for the Johor WiFi project is RM12.477 million for three years from 2016 to 2018, covering 134 hotspots in public areas involving 10 districts, 16 local authorities (PBT) and 13 PPRs.

“Due to the encouraging response, the state government will expand the Johor WiFi project to rural areas. Apart from that, the access speed for several existing Johor WiFi hotspot locations will be upgraded from four megabits per second (Mbps) to eight Mbps, to accommodate the high usage demand.

“The second phase of the Johor WiFi project will involve the addition of 49 new hotspot locations in rural areas, while the internet capacity speed at 41 existing hotspots involving 25 PPR and 16 PBT areas will be upgraded, probably by the middle of next year,” he said.