Tokyo taxis add Wi-Fi

Tokyo - during Japan has 100 million Internet users – third party on the planet - and some of the most modern mobile devices on the market may be difficult to find a wireless hotspot.

Press Photo Agency is a line that Delta Airlines aircraft for take-off in Atlanta, Georgia free Wi-Fi on domestic flights to Jan. 2 as part of promotion with Google strung. Then service starts at $4.95 per FlightDelta aims, Wi-Fi have more than 80% of its U.S. fleet until 2011

Lufthansa

Service on some routes in the North Atlantic; until 2011 then price of 19.95 euros for 24 hours or 7,000 miles are on all intercontinental FlightsFree until January 2011

Dissemination of smart phones and gadgets that only increases demand for wireless Internet connection via Wi-Fi like Apple Inc. iPad tablets and Nintendo Co.'s DS portable game has players.

Airlines, commuter trains and inter-city buses all over the world already offer Wi Fi connections for travelers. But Japan's largest mobile carrier by subscribers, NTT DoCoMo Inc., is a step further, taking wireless connectivity by Internet-hungry gadgets to get taxis Tokyo online within.

There is Wi-Fi hotspots in Japanese railway stations, highway rest areas and even McDonald's restaurants. Rows still Japan eighth place between countries for the number of public hotspots based on sites with JiWire, a San Francisco company, the mobile phone view provides registered.

DoCoMo has begun free Wi-Fi offers muses cooperative by bike in 820 of cabins from Tokyo's largest taxi company, Tokyo-the cars with a Wi-Fi router, the carrier's cellular signal converts to a personal wireless hotspot.

Bloomberg News A central Japan Railway Co. 700 series Shinkansen bullet train

Amtrak

Free on all Acela Express Travel

Shinkansen

Wi-Fi available on Japanese bullet train running between Tokyo and Osaka starting at around 500 yen per day

Virgin train

The UK-based service offers free Wi-Fi to February 28, 2011 as part of promotion with Google

"With the growing popularity of smartphones, and Tablet PC computers like iPads that demand for WiFi really is growing," a Manager in DoCoMo said Shintaro Oka, support group that is overseeing the project.

The company muses of the fleet of Wi-Fi devices place is about 20% of Tokyo and the service is free for passengers, the DoCoMo customers, 2011 will not be 31, until March.

While the number of Wi-Fi taxi account for less than 2% of Tokyo around 50,000 taxi cars is cabins, the roll-out part of a nationwide campaign by DoCoMo, to promote his so-called mi Fi router with the width of a mobile network coverage area with the ability to multiple devices at the same time the Web connect to offer

The carrier is also breed marketing campaign to taxis in other Japanese cities are expanding. DoCoMo charges that the mi Fi device is about to buy 10,000 yen ($120) the size of a stack of business cards, and the user is charged 4,410 yen per month for unlimited data plan.

BoltBus

The service mostly in North East USA offers free Wi-Fi

Megabus

Free Wi-Fi on its buses in the United States, Canada

Oxford express

Buses between Oxford and London offer free Wi-Fi on board

DoCoMo is in a similar position as US carrier Verizon Wireless. It rotates product mi-Fi devices to collect data transfer revenue of gadgets outside its line-up like Apple's iPad. The Apple tablet will work only on rival carrier 3 g services but DoCoMo Softbank Corp.'s keep data on the device revenue a Wi Fi version of the iPad can deal with the MI-Fi router.

Ryutaro Ueno, a spokesman for Tokyo muses taxi service, said it will consider keeping in taxi Wi-Fi if customers find the service and then start questions. But he said there are after all outstanding questions about, the Bill feet and whether the service would be free after the promotion for passengers.

Taxi drivers wait Bloomberg news for customers outside the railway station in Tokyo.

Tokyo muses

820 Tokyo cabins offer free Wi-Fi to March 31

GroundLink

Wi-Fi supported plans to the outfit painting car and limousine rental in New York with outdoor advertising

Mr. Ueno, said one Tokyo of muses's driver picked up a mother and a young son, who was searching for one of the Wi-Fi cabs had so they use the vehicle Internet connectivity was able to play friends online with his PlayStation Portable. Tokyo muses cabins with Wi-Fi are painted black, rather than green and have a small red W LAN label on the rear of the passenger side window.

Japanese Internet entrepreneur Takafumi Horie sent a message to his twitter followers who say: "in a Wi-Fi DoCoMo taxi now how enjoyable." But some users on Twitter in question provided that Wi-Fi would be useful in a taxi since it covers only short distances, while the other concern that you suffer would play to motion sickness from browsing the Web or video games in the back of a moving car.

DoCoMo said it addressed some security and privacy concerns with the free Wi-Fi service by disabling a feature that allows to bypass the router Wi-Fi gadgets and communicate directly with each other. To access the taxi connection, users must use a password that is found in a pamphet within the cabin.

For Tokyo, the company had another concern muses.

"Some of our riders in age, are advanced so many do not really understand the service," said Mr. Ueno. "DoCoMo made it so that passengers as figure out can use without the driver's assistance to the service."

Write toDaisuke Wakabayashi at Daisuke.Wakabayashi@wsj.com

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