Free WiFi Now LIVE in Ashby and Coalville Town Centres
A new investment by the North West Leicestershire District Council (NWLDC) means that residents and visitors in Coalville and Ashby-de-la-Zouch can now access a free public WiFi (wireless internet) hotspot service around the centres of both towns.
Local users can log-on to WiFi in both town centres by accessing the “NWLeicsFreeWiFi” (SSID) network from their mobile devices. The contract to install and manage the service for 5-years was won by InTechnology.
Councillor Tony Gillard, Portfolio Holder for Business and Regeneration at NWLDC, said: “Extensive research shows that providing free WiFi to people visiting market towns has benefits for businesses, shoppers and tourists.”
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“We want our businesses to be able to trade and compete in the 21st century and to use their online footprint to attract customers. WiFi can help people find the nearest cafe, clothes shop, book store or restaurant and bring more custom to our towns.”
“This is very much a long-term investment for us, boosted by funding from Leicestershire County Council and the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP), which we believe will increase footfall, trade and the visitor experience in both Coalville and Ashby into the future.”
PICTURED: Bill Young from InTechnology (centre) shows Ashby Mayor Councillor Graham Allman (centre left) and Town Council leader John Coxon how to log into the new WiFi in Ashby.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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How important is free wifi with smart phones and mobile data?
You need free wifi in coalville because there is zero shops and nothing else there. What else would you do?
Also to add the free wifi has been in coalville for a while (at least 3+ months). It isn’t very fast. EE 4G is massively faster.
The free wifi will help people use Google Maps to figure out how to get away from Coalville as quickly as possible.
I guess allot of people on pay as you go with tiny data allowances, tablets and laptops, it could prove useful.
Fair point, but those people tend to be on payasyougo or have very little data because they don’t actually need/use it.
Free WiFi is great for people who cannot afford cellular data.
We have found the free WiFi in Coalville and Ashby, where deployed, is considerably faster than the 4G service. The service is without any costs to the end user and has unlimited data usage. I would therefore suggest this is a valuable additional service to all the community of Coalville and Ashby.