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T Indosat (ISAT), the second-largest mobile phone operator, has allotted the remainder of its roughly Rp 6 trillion (US$624 million) capital expenditure budget this year to multiply the number of their Wi-Fi access points to cope with increased data traffic, a company executive has said.

Erik Meijer, PT Indosat chief operating officer, said that the company had activated 3,500 Wi-Fi access points, or hotspots, under their Super Wi-Fi program, which kicked off in September. “We plan to double the number of these access points, available across the country, by the end of the year,” he said.

At the launch of the program, the operator made the service available across 700 locations in Java and Bali. The technology behind the program enables mobile devices belonging to Indosat subscribers to automatically connect to the operator’s Wi-Fi without logging in with a user name or password. “We will be setting up our hotspots in outdoor areas and areas where traffic jams occur often, so that people stuck in those jams can still enjoy our Wi-Fi service,” he said.

State-owned telecommunications operator PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) has launched a similar program of providing Wi-Fi access points.

The operator expects to have set up 100,000 hotspots in 30 cities across all major islands, and aims to have installed 1 million access points by 2013.

The provision of hotspots for Internet access is part of the operators’ efforts to “offload” the high data traffic cramping the limited space in their third generation, or 3G networks.

Meijer said that the Wi-Fi would provide connection speeds more than 10 times higher than GSM networks. He added that Indosat was in the midst of upgrading the equipment at their telecommunication towers, including antennae, as part of their network modernization program.

The modernization is necessary to utilize the latest frequency which they have been granted. In August, the Communications and Information Ministry licensed Indosat to use the 900 megahertz frequency for broadband services.

“As a start, we are upgrading our networks in Jakarta, Bandung and Bali,” he said, adding that the work being carried out on their towers could cause slight disruptions in their service.