Icon

Your Guide to Design and Pop Culture in Tokyo

Oct 30, 2009

Free Wi-Fi at Starbucks

Anyone who has tried to find some free wi-fi spots in Tokyo will know just how big a deal this is: Starbucks is set to offer free wi-fi in 94 of its stores in Japan starting November 1, with plans to expand after that. Tokyo web workers rejoice. Via Jason Jenkins.

Update: The service may not be as free as I had hoped, and may be limited to customers of NTT’s Flet’s.

Update 2: Some good news — it’s been confirmed that the service is indeed free.

Update 3: Well, looks like we were wrong. The service is indeed only for customers of Flet’s and Mzone — here’s the press release from Starbucks.

Category: Technology, Tokyo Walking

Tagged: , ,

7 Responses

  1. anonymous says:
    October 30, 2009 at 6:05 pm

    The article says it is “public” wifi. Does that mean it’s free? I mean, most places already offer wifi services that are by definition public. . in the sense that they are available to the “paying” public.

  2. RL says:
    October 30, 2009 at 7:38 pm

    Nah, It’s Flets. As far as I can tell from the Flets website, you have to pay ¥800 a month minimum. I wonder if its free for Flets broadband users – Softbank mobile users get access to Softbanks (very rare) mobilepoint service. NTT isn’t known for providing anything free tho’.

  3. Jean Snow says:
    October 30, 2009 at 7:43 pm

    Starbucks has been offering some sort of for-pay wi-fi service for a while now, so I took this as meaning that it was going free.

  4. Katsuyoshi says:
    October 31, 2009 at 3:30 pm

    As you updated, they offer wifi of NTT Flets Spot and NTT Docomo M-zone, so it’s probably same as Tully’s:
    http://is.gd/4ISjy

  5. Joseph K says:
    November 2, 2009 at 7:37 am

    Balls. Even I got a bit excited, and I don’t even live there anymore! If somewhere like Starbucks did starts offering it free, it might actually bump the whole of Tokyo towards a bit freer attitude towards wi-fi…

  6. maishado says:
    November 3, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    What an emotional rollercoaster

  7. Jean Snow says:
    November 3, 2009 at 3:35 pm

    With a sad ending.

Leave a Reply

PauseTalk

PauseTalk is a regular series of events that take place at Cafe Pause on the first Monday of every month, with a start time of 20:00. The idea is to create a forum where Tokyo-based creatives can get together and discuss their own projects, as well as cultural currents of the city. The next edition happens in March.

PLAY is a series of events with Jean Snow spinning some of his favorite virtual discs in a casual setting at Cafe Pause. The next edition happens in January. See the setlist for previous editions here, and subscribe to a feed of the mixes.
Game

Being a survey of recommended titles for your gaming pleasure. New games are added 2-3 times weekly, and all selections are by your host, Jean Snow, a Tokyo-based writer and gamer.

Jean Snow is a contributor to Arcade Mania, your guide to the arcade gaming scene in Japan (Amazon US/Amazon Japan). He also provided assistance on Tokyolife: Art and Design, a guide to Tokyo's cultural output of the past few years, covering the works of over 80 influential creatives.
He will be contributing to the upcoming fifth editions of The Rough Guide to Tokyo and The Rough Guide to Japan, due for release in 2011.
Jean Snow lives and breathes design, pop culture, and gaming in Tokyo -- sustained by an unhealthy addiction to magazines and frequent visits to his favorites cafes. He has reported on these obsessions for the following online/offline publications: Time, Inside (Australian Design Review), Gizmodo, Gridskipper, Kotaku, Tokyo Q, Superfuture, OK Fred, Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, I.D. (International Design), Metropolis, Azure, MoCo Loco, Kateigaho International Edition, Wired's Game|Life, PingMag, CNNGo, and The Japan Times. He also manages the gallery space at Cafe Pause.

He writes a monthly column covering Japanese product design for The Japan Times, called "On Design." It appears on the fourth Thursday of every month, in both the print edition and online.

Pecha Kucha Night

I'm also a proud member of the Pecha Kucha Night family, working on various projects, including updating Pecha Kucha Daily, a blog that highlights the creativity coming out of PKN events worldwide.

PauseTalk

I serve as editor-at-large at Néojaponisme, a web journal covering social and cultural aspects of Japan. Read the manifesto, by founder and chief editor W. David Marx.

Colophon

The "Jean Snow" logo is made up of the Blackout open source typeface. The "M31" logo is by Ian Lynam, and is part of a series of 31 unique designs. The site's design is based on the Grid Focus WordPress theme by Derek Punsalan.

Twittering

    Insurance Quotes