Facebook wants to make it a little easier for you to get online.
The social media giant is testing a new feature that alerts users to the closest available Wi-Fi, according to TNW. The service, simply called “Find Wi-Fi,” appears to rely on hotspot information provided by local businesses on their Pages.
As TNW notes, that could lead to some inaccurate results because the physical addresses listed by the businesses may not actually be the same locations as the Wi-Fi.
Still, the feature has clear implications for Facebook’s push to get more people to use its Live video-streaming feature. Mobile networks that use 4G and 5G may not have sufficient bandwidth to support streaming for extended periods of time, making Wi-Fi critical to the company’s efforts to make Live more widely used.
As of now, the Wi-Fi location feature appears to be experimental. People have noticed it on some (but not all) iOS Facebook apps—but it doesn’t seem to be available on Android phone apps quite yet.
