New Castle, DE – New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer, in partnership with Delaware Division of Libraries, University of Delaware, Verizon, Assurance Media, Cisco-Meraki and the New Castle County Information Systems and Public Works departments, have more than doubled New Castle County’s free ‘drive thru’ wi-fi hotspots bringing the total locations to 22.
As an added feature, New Castle County worked with University of Delaware to provide eduroam (education roaming) is a secure, world-wide roaming access service developed for the international research and education community. Having started in Europe, eduroam has gained momentum throughout the research and education community and is now available in over 100 territories. Eduroam allows students, researchers and staff from participating institutions to obtain Internet connectivity across campus and when visiting other participating institutions by simply opening their laptop.
The New Castle County hotspot locations include: Banning Park Maintenance Base, Bear Library, Claymont Library, Hockessin PAL Center, Police Academy, Government Center, Garfield PAL, EMS 5 – Middletown, Absalom Jones, Kirkwood Library, Gilliam Building, Hockessin Library, Newark Free Library, North Wilmington Branch Library, Woodlawn Library, Elsmere Public Library, Glasgow Park - Frasier House, Route 9 Library, Brandywine Hundred Library, Delaware City Library, Corbit-Calloway Library, and New Castle Public Library.
“We are seeing solid usage data across most of our wi-fi hotspot locations, so we decided to add more opportunity to those who need to access broadband internet,” County Executive Matt Meyer said. “As we head into our fifth week of quarantine, it’s important we continue to offer basic necessity like wi-fi is a growing necessity for job search, for schoolwork, and for maintaining communication with family and friends.”
County Executive Meyer also reminded users to remain in their cars, and if physical distancing is not respected in areas around County buildings, New Castle County will deactivate hotspots. Hours of the hotspots coincide with library operations hours.
To learn where additional hotspots have been added, New Castle County has established a site wifi.nccde.org that will show where each of these wi-fi hotspots are located. These wi-fi locations will become part of permanent part of County infrastructure.
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