Japan's first step to the WiFi friendly country

Hiroshi Mizohata, Commissioner of Japan Tourism Agency (JTA), said that JTA is working with the local Internet service providers to start the free WiFi services to more than 100 airports and major sightseeing spots in Japan for travelers, Nikkei and Wall Street Journal reported earlier.

Unlike Incheon Int'l Airport of Korea, or Hong Kong International Airport, the Japanese airports have not really provided free WiFi. Worst of all, Yahoo! Japan closed the free Internet cafe at Narita airport earlier this year. The airports in Japan have been one of the inconvenient airports in the world in terms of the Internet usage. (There is one free Internet desk with LAN ports at International Departure of Chubu Centrair Airport).

JTA is currenly trying to provide free WiFi services to 7 major airports (Narita, Haneda, Chubu, Kansai and etc), sea ports (Hakata, Shimonoseki, Osaka), and more than 100 tourist informations throughout Japan by 2011.

They may ask travelers to provide their email addresses when using the Free WiFi.

In addition to the free WiFi, they will launch the portal website to connect tourist associations all over Japan.

Despite of cost of making the Internet access free, the travelers will receive all kinds of useful information during their trips. It will help Japanese tourism industry for sure. I hope they will be checking YokosoNews while traveling in Japan.