SM Cebu launches free Wi-Fi as added customer service

-By Nancy R. Cudis

SM City Cebu is giving its shoppers more reasons to regularly visit the mall. Apart from the ample convenient parking spaces and a wide range of tenants, SM City Cebu is now equipped with wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) connection that the management is giving to visitors and shoppers for free.

Very exciting, really, since this added customer service would allow those with Wi-Fi capable devices to conveniently access the Internet wherever they are within the mall’s premises, including the carpark.

Last week, the mall’s management launched the free Wi-Fi, simultaneously with the SM malls in Iloilo and Bacolod. This brings, as of July 31, 2009, a total of 13 SM malls nationwide with free Wi-Fi since it was first installed in SM Marikina last February. The aim of SM management is to have all the 36 SM malls in the Philippines offering free Wi-Fi service by October this year.

The unveiling of the new service in SM City Cebu was covered by various media outlets, including the Cebu Bloggers Society whose two members (Sinjin Pineda and Jose Farrugia) won contest prizes (Congratulations, guys!). The launching featured initial availability of the free Wi-Fi connection at SM City Cebu Northwing Atrium and Cyberzone. Last Tuesday, the entire mall is already covered by this new service.

You might wonder, though, the ability of the connection to accommodate a huge volume of foot traffic coming to SM City Cebu. A management-issued assurance was given: the free Wi-fi, which is provided for by Internet service provider Philippine Global Communications Inc. (PhilCom), has a bandwidth capacity of 8 mbps. This means that the service could accommodate 200 users simultaneously or approximately 1,000 users per day.

Since not all have Wi-Fi capable mobile phones and laptops (not yet, I mean) and since the average 100,000 to more than 200,000 daily foot traffic of SM City Cebu does not come all at the same time in a day, the connection would still be enough for one to access the Internet while on the go. At the same time, Internet cafe tenants like Netopia would still have the ability to accommodate shoppers who are more into gaming and who lack Wi-fi capable devices.

It’s a pretty neat set-up, especially when the free Wi-Fi in itself would attract shoppers, give them added convenience to access their Facebook counts (hehehe), increase foot traffic, grow the market for mall tenants, and potentially increase revenues for both the mall and the tenants. No matter how you turn the tables, everyone benefits.

Besides, Wi-Fi is not the only thing. SM City Cebu will open a 500-seater IMAX Theater in the fourth quarter this year. This, for sure, would be another mall project worth looking forward to.

Personally, I am curious to find out the views of SM City Cebu’s direct competitors about these new and upcoming services…. But I guess this would be another plan for another day.

Filed under: Business, Fun/Entertainment, IT/Computers/Software Development