TECH

When free Wi-Fi isn't really free

Life, James Hein, Published on 15/07/2015

» I've been doing some travelling recently and I've been taking some notice of the availability of Wi-Fi in international airports. Arriving in Singapore for example I was expecting free Wi-Fi at the airport but while it claimed to be it wasn't. To gain access you have to login, enter your mobile phone number and feed in the returning information from the SMS. Depending on your mobile roaming charges, and if you have roaming turned on at all, this can be somewhat costly for allegedly free Wi-Fi. Arriving at Jakarta airport the free Wi-Fi was both free and did not require any of these hoops to be navigated before accessing. Bottom line: Wi-Fi in Jakarta was much easier to use than in Singapore, which might sound counter-intuitive but based on my experience at least is true. In the age of voice over the internet the whole concept of huge phone and data charges is just plain wrong anyway. On the positive side for Singapore, buying an inexpensive voice and data plan for a couple of weeks was very reasonably priced. Also on the return journey I found that you can get a password in Singapore using a computer terminal, so access if you're not in a hurry.