The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority and internet provider True Wifi have teamed up to offer free wifi access at 15,000 hotspots across Bangkok for the next year
If you need wireless internet access when you’re travelling but get fed up of paying for it or using noisy internet cafes, Bangkok’s new free wifi initiative should be welcome. Collect a Green Bangkok registration card from one of the hotspot locations, go to the Green Bangkok registration page (in English), enter the details on the card and you’re ready to log in. Full instructions in English are provided here. The card is good for 3 months of access which should suit most travellers – Bangkok residents will have to get another card once the 3 months is up.
The Green Bangkok free wifi scheme is, as you can guess, part of Bangkok’s attempt to start cleaning itself up. Traffic pollution and gridlock is still a major problem in the city and the city authorities hope to encourage more telecommuting and less driving with the scheme. It’s definitely to be applauded, but let’s hope the implementation of the scheme is as good as the idea behind it – depending on how many people are logged on and using the system, connection speeds could get pretty slow. There is potentially half a million users for the system and while True has provided fairly decent wifi to most cafes and department stores, how well it will cope will mass demand remains to be seen. Bangkok internet access, whether by wifi or fixed line, is notoriously patchy, so don’t expect too much.
Finding the Green Bangkok registration cards themselves might be a bit tricky too – there is no clear list of where they’re available, but presumably they’ll be at the True Wifi hotspots. I have not tried the system out for myself yet, but I’m heading for Bangkok in a couple of days so will try to get hold of a registration card then.
There are several places in you can get free wifi in Bangkok already, and several Bangkok hotels with free wifi too. I also recently wrote up how you can use your phone as a modem to connect to your laptop to the net pretty much anywhere in Thailand – that’s not free, but it’s pretty cheap.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
One thing to note is that the free wifi is a mind-bogglingly slow 64kbps, or dial-up speed. The lowest consumer DSL speed available in Bangkok–itself relatively slow–is 512kbps, or 8 times faster.
So it’s okay for checking email, but probably not general surfing, and definitely not for stuff like YouTube.
Better than nothing, though, when you need it.