The City of Lexington in North Carolina, USA, is celebrating its Wi-Fi service one year after its launch in 2012.
It announced that it now averages over 200 users a day and the recent Barbecue Festival boosted its success when it saw almost 1,600 unique users log onto the service, reports the-dispatch.com.
The 21 Wi-Fi hotspots are located in the Uptown Lexington business district. Incredibly, the city kept the installation of the service well under budget. It originally expected to spend around $40,000 on the system but ended up only forking out $30,000, despite extending coverage to the Depot District and the farmers’ market, reports bizjournals.com.
Terra Greene, Lexington assistant city manager and director of the information technologies department, said the city is “thrilled” with the performance of the city’s Wi-Fi service this year.
“Ecommerce is just a fact of life today,” she explained. “Many shoppers and business owners expect to have access to the internet. We wanted to demonstrate the forward thinking that the city leaders have embraced.
“When you look at a small downtown like we have, it is viewed as very progressive to offer free Wi-Fi. We have had a very positive response and hope people have recognised the signage and have embraced the service,” she added.
There are plans to later expand the Wi-Fi outside the business district to community parks and other public areas.
