Yokohama Chinatown to offer Wi-Fi using global Wi-Fi service, FON

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A joint project between the Yokohama Chinatown Development Association and FON, the world’s largest Wi-Fi service, is set to begin to bring Wi-Fi to the entirety of the Yokohama Chinatown.

Yokohama Chinatown, with its distinctly non-Japanese air, is one of the tourist destinations where more than 21 million people visit every year. Given both the spread of mobile devices including smartphones and the rapidly increasing trend for tourists visiting Japan, it was imperative to offer Wi-Fi within Chinatown. The decision was made to work with FON, which already has users in more than 200 countries and has built a network with more than 17 million hotspots, such that everyone coming to Yokohama Chinatown, both from Japan and abroad, will be able to use the Internet safely.

Free Wi-Fi service will be offered and easily available to all visitors of the principal areas of Yokohama Chinatown, including its main streets, at first, as well as within the shops of members of the Yokohama Chinatown Development Association. And because FON offers the option to log in using Facebook credentials, it will be simple and safe to get connected without all the hassle of a user registration process.

Yoichiro Ishikawa, director of the Yokohama Chinatown Development Association’s Education & Public Outreach Division, had the following to say. “We’d like to create an environment within Yokohama Chinatown that is friendly to tourists. In recent years the increase in tourist numbers to Japan has been remarkable. We have come to believe that free Wi-Fi facilities that guests from overseas can comfortably use while in Chinatown are indispensible. We have therefore partnered with FON, who already has many users both in foreign countries and in Japan to help us create an environment in Yokohama Chinatown that is ‘Wi-Fi friendly.’”

Support for the use of Facebook login credentials eliminates the need for other more annoying login steps. There is no need to hand out cards with the Wi-Fi passcode on it. Users can also easily auto-connect to FON Wi-Fi spots using the FON connection app, available worldwide.

The Wi-Fi system will connect with the Social Guidebook, which allows you to search for any and all locations associated with the Yokohama Chinatown Development Association. This will allow tourists to create and share their original guidebooks comprised of their favorite Chinatown locations.

Alex Puregger, CEO at FON Wireless, Ltd., noted the following. “We are working hard to support the growth of Wi-Fi to regional communities in every country across the globe. In addition to our work in Brooklyn, in New York City, we have made great strides as the local community Wi-Fi provider and partner for Olympic host cities such as London and Rio de Janeiro. Providing Wi-Fi to Yokohama Chinatown is part of those efforts. We are honored to be able to be involved in the effort to build on the Internet environment in Yokohama Chinatown, a tourist destination representative of the Japan experience. Moving forward, FON will continue to work to offer Wi-Fi to people through regional community involvement.”