The Downtown Community Improvement District Board revealed the start of a free Wi-Fi service for the public in certain areas downtown.

The service officially started last month, but the idea had been in the works for more than a year. It will begin as a six-month trial, free for all users and paid for by the CID’s sales tax.

The CID sales tax passed a year and a half ago. Since then, the board has added many different programs and services to enhance the downtown area for customers.

“One of those projects was free Wi-Fi, which we are now just following through on,” CID board member Alan Waters said.
The board is also using the sales tax to purchase recycling containers for sidewalk recycling, CID Executive Director Carrie Gartner said.

“Districts all charge a sales tax on their products, and then we use that money to help the customers,” Gartner said.

The free Wi-Fi covers Ninth Street, Broadway, Flat Branch Park and Courthouse Plaza. Six transmitters are set up on top up various downtown buildings. A seventh will be installed as soon as the Roger Wilson County Building’s roof construction is finished. The seven transmitters and the design fee, where the transmitters would be put, cost a total of $13,270.

The Wi-Fi service is designed for public spaces like streets and parks. The stores and restaurants privately handle their Wi-Fi, Gartner said.

“We use our resources to enhance public space, not private,” Makes Scents owner Christina Kelley said.

The board hopes to see many benefits from this program, Gartner said.

“I think it really encourages people to stay downtown longer and encourages people to take advantage of many of the beautiful public spaces we have,” Kelley said. “As a business owner, I was definitely in favor of the plan. So far we’ve already seen really good usage.”

The plan covers the high traffic and most populated areas downtown, Kelley said.

“It gives people, particularly visitors, a way to connect to the Internet while they’re downtown, get directions, and get on downtown merchant websites,” Alan Waters said.

This is believed to be valuable for all travelers and customers within downtown Columbia. This way the public can walk around the streets without dropping a signal, Gartner said.

“I think it’ll be easier for customers to wander around the area and use a mapping function to find different shops and places to eat,” she said. “Many people can now enjoy their lunch in the park and still keep in touch and check their email while they eat.”

So far, the free Wi-Fi service has already shown to be useful to many users.

“People were finding it naturally without even an announcement, which was really exciting,” Kelley said.

The board did not initially announce the launch of the program to see if people would stumble upon it on their own, Gartner said.

“Two days ago, we were told 650 people had used the Wi-Fi,” Gartner said. “One hour later, we received another update that informed us 150 more people jumped on the Wi-Fi. As we advertise more, the amount of users jumps significantly.”

The board will re-evaluate the responses after the trial period is up. If after the trial period, the board decides to keep the free Wi-Fi and expand upon it, they will need 14 total transmitters to cover the entire downtown district, Gartner said.