Free Wi-Fi to be rolled out across ‘smart city’ Newcastle and Gateshead

26th June 2014

San Francisco, New York, Paris and now Newcastle and Gateshead!

The North East is to receive free Wi-Fi for tourists, businesses and locals after local councils selected GOWEX to provide the service after a public tendering process.

GOWEX is based in Madrid but having implemented similar schemes in city’s around the world were seen as the ideal partner. The free Wi-Fi will come in in two flavours; a 1mbps service free of charge, and an 8mpbs service which will be charged at £8.00 per month.

You should be able to gain access to the free Wi-Fi starting this August (2014) as the scheme is rolled out, and plans to be complete by 2015.

“It will make us the first place in the UK to have freely accessible Wi-Fi in our city centres.

“It puts us on a par with places like San Francisco, Miami and New York in regard to public access and be a major attraction for visitors as well as providing residents with the ability to use social media on the move.”

Nick Forbes, Newcastle City Council

Interestingly the deal is not costing the council or tax payers anything at all either and in fact the city could stand to generate some money from the deal with revenues generates split between the council and GOWEX.

The access will be provided via various access points and antennas dotted around city buildings and installed on (…and presumably under) Newcastle’s “street furniture”.

It puts Newcastle and Gateshead right up there with the most connected cities in the world.

Spokesmen also added that subscribers to the 6mbps service will receive free access to the upper tier Wi-Fi available in the San Fancisco, New York and Paris deployments too!

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