Pohnpei, FSM—On Wednesday, February 17, 2016, the Sekere community celebrated opening of their new multi-purpose community center. With funding provided by Congressional Election District 1, Senator Ferny Perman, FSM Telecom was able to install a wifi access point (AP) at the new center. The service will be provided free of charge to the surrounding community for a period of two years.

The wireless access points that FSMTC deployed for this project are dual band Pro models from Ubiquiti. This model was selected based on the low bandwidth requirements and excellent performance. A Sonicwall security appliance is included with the WiFi to help manage usage of the service. Since November 2015, Senator Perman’s project has installed 17 APs to improve the availability of internet services to several areas in Kolonia, Sokehs and one site in Awak, U. Anyone at the following sites can enjoy this free wifi service: Awak Civic Center, Danpei Sinokoke, Pohnpei Hospital medical and surgical wards, Kapinga Community House, Kepinle Sinakoke, Nukuoro Community House, Pakin School, PICS cafeteria, Pohnpei Public Library, Roie Sinakoke, Sapwohn Community Nahs, SDA Community Center, and Pohnpei Airport Departure and Arrival lounges.

FSMTC is currently seeing over 2,000 users per day on all the APs and excited to report an ever increasing number of people using the internet because of these free wifi sites.

Thanks to the ED1 project, for the first time ever, there is internet and and cellular service at Pakin Atoll, which lies off the northwest coast of Pohnpei. FSM Telecom hopes to be able to provide similar reliable communication services for the first time to the other remote islands of Pohnpei when funding becomes available.