MITC Wi-Fi Hotspot is Poor
As far as I’m concerned, public facilities like MITC (Melaka International Trade Centre) and Melaka Sentral are both equipped with free Wi-Fi hotspots, managed by the same provider – Melaka ICT Holdings (MICTH).
I was at MITC just now in the noon for an event. Driven by curiosity, I flipped up my Asus F3F notebook PC and switched on the wireless network interface, at Orange Café located at MITC lobby.
However, I was greeted with disappointment on the free Wi-Fi.
My Wi-Fi chipset has detected 2 unprotected wireless networks in range – E-MELAKA and TMNET. MICTH wireless network wasn’t listed at all. So, I tried connecting to E-MELAKA network. While the connection took quite a while to establish, but in the end my notebook PC was only connected with limited connectivity, which in layman term, means I couldn’t get access to the Internet. This is expected, as E-MELAKA wireless network is never meant to be the core free Wi-Fi for public at MITC.
Then, I tried refreshing the list of wireless networks detected in range. After several attempts, a wireless network with SID of “Wireless-MICTH” was finally detected, but with relatively poor strength (1 out of 5 bars).
Without second thought, I immediately try connecting to Wireless-MICTH, and yes, my PC was successfully connected. But, my hooray was soon dismissed, as I can only access to the Internet to load the landing page of one, and only one site. After that, the poor strength turned inaccessible.
This is a real disappointment. We are talking about a public facility functioning as international trade centre, and yet, a basic commodity like Wi-Fi hotspot is not even satisfyingly managed and provided. Further more, the area where MITC is located, is housing a number of important state government offices. It is also playing the role of knowledge economy and entrepreneurship incubation. How could a modernized place like this lacking with satisfying ICT infrastructure?
I sincerely hope that the poor Wi-Fi experience I met today is just an exceptional event, and that it is decently operating most of the time.
Just a disclaimer, I had to try out the Wi-Fi connection at Orange Café, the MITC lobby, as I couldn’t find any other place with tables and chairs. If you know of any particular spot in MITC with strong Wireless-MICTH signal, do share your experience in the following commenting section.
8 comments August 12th, 2007
