Work is now underway to add additional suburbs to Canberra’s free public Wi-Fi network (CBRFree), protecting local jobs and making Canberra better connected.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr said that the CBRfree network is being expanded to cover every Canberra town centre, 16 group centres and a number of popular community locations and businesses. The rollout of free wi-fi is creating more jobs and supporting local businesses, particularly smaller businesses in our town centres and local shopping precincts.
Chief Minister Barr explained that as part of this rollout, the download limit is being increased from 250MB to 1GB per day per device to allow people to browse the internet for around 12 hours, stream 200 songs or watch two hours of video. The Chief Minister also said that during COVID-19, internet access has been particularly vital, with the ACT Government providing free internet access to around 600 ACT public school students studying from home who did not already have access.




The Chief Minister said that the CBRfree Wi-Fi network will support a range of smart city initiatives which will benefit the ACT community, including support to 30 Public Safety CCTV cameras to help make our city and suburban town centres even safer. Barr added that the ACT’s CBRfree network currently involves 334 Wireless Access Points (WAPs) across the territory, giving commuters, businesses, students and visitors widespread access. This will be increased to 415 when the network is complete. iiNet also provides an additional 63 indoor WAPs located in business premises across Canberra.
Chief Minister Barr went on to explained that CBRfree public Wi-Fi is already available around the town centres of Belconnen, Gungahlin, Tuggeranong, Civic and Woden, as well as a number of group centres and community locations including the Canberra Theatre, Belconnen Arts Centre, EPIC, Cooleman Court, Botanic Gardens, Kingston Foreshore, Tuggeranong Basketball Stadium and Stromlo Forest Park. The network will now be extended to further parts of Gungahlin, as well as the group centres of Amaroo, Calwell, Chisholm, Erindale, Hawker, Jamison, Kaleen, Kambah, Kingston, Kippax, Lanyon, Mawson and Wanniassa. Belconnen Basketball Centre will also be covered.

The rollout of additional locations will be undertaken between now and the end of June 2021.