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June 4, 2005
Is KIX The World's Largest Free-Wi-Fi Airport?
Posted by John Yunker
At first I thought it was a mistake. I was at Kansai International Airport (KIX) in Osaka, Japan waiting for my flight earlier this week when I opened up my laptop to check for Wi-Fi. Normally, what I want to know is how much they're going to squeeze me for per hour. Is it $7.95 or $9.95 or do they skip the hourly rate entirely and just hit me up for a 12-hour block?
But then something very strange happened -- I got free Wi-Fi. And it wasn't a mistake. This was free, airport-sponsored Wi-Fi. I checked email, woke my poor wife using Skype -- I just had myself a little party.
Kansai offers free Wi-Fi: Power outlets, however, are scarce.
It appears that for the past two years KIX has been giving away free Wi-Fi. I've heard of a number of small regional airports offering free Wi-Fi as an incentive to lure traffic, but never an airport of this size.
So, is Kansai the world's largest airport to offer free Wi-Fi? Any users out there know of a larger airport offering free Wi-Fi?
Comments (2)
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Russell Shaw is a specialist in mobile computing, telephony, networking and covers these fields regularly for numerous print and online publications. Russ writes the popular IP Telephony blog on ZDNet and contributes regularly to The Industry Standard blog as well. Author of seven books, Russ' latest book is Wireless Networking Made Easy.
John Yunker is president of 
1. John on June 4, 2005 3:47 AM writes...
I used the Kansai free access about a year ago, and was also surprised to find it there. Apparently there is similar access in terminal 2 at Narita (Tokyo's main international airport) though I can't confirm that.
You can get a list of other airports offering free wi-fi at http://www.wififreespot.com/airport.html though I don't know how up-to-date that is (the site is nothing to do with me).
Permalink to Comment2. Bill Henderson on June 5, 2005 1:06 AM writes...
I can confirm Narita Terminal 2. Lots of touch down stations for folks to work at as well.
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