In the 80s, you used to get off a long haul flight desperate for a smoke. Now you’re desperate for Wi-Fi. And if you’re planning to travel to the cities of San Jose, San Francisco and New York next month, accessing public Wi-Fi is about to get a little easier.
It’s not as revolutionary as it sounds, but from now till Sept 21, you’ll be able to connect to more than 1,000 Wi-Fi hotspots by logging in just once, even when you’re moving from one place to another, thanks to a new collaboration project called the Wireless Broadband Alliance City Wi-Fi Roaming. You won’t have to fiddle with your phone every time you move to a new place to connect to the Wi-Fi hotspot. However, it does require you to download a configuration file onto your smart device, where you’ll have to change the settings for auto-connection to the city’s participating hotspots.
Americans visiting Singapore who are on the T-Mobile network will be able to do something similar on our own Wireless@SG network, as long as they’ve registered their SIM card for it. This method, called the SIM-login, is already in oepration for Singapore SIM cards. They’ll be able to join other Singaporeans who can connect to the 290 hotspots that are available, including those on Sentosa and at major MRT stations. IDA is working closely with the Land Transport Authority, Sentosa Development Corporation and telcos M1 and Singtel for this trial.
