WiFi Passport, Google’s Low-Cost Internet Service Launched in Jakarta

Other than being the world’s information center, seems like Google has another dream, to connect every people in the world through internet more easily. They invented a way to make it easier for us to go online through a new service called WiFi Passport. Interestingly, Google uses Jakarta as trial location, allowing us to connect to Wi-Fi hotspot for free or with a very low cost.

Google made this WiFi Passport service to be a quick, easy, and cheap way for everyone to access internet during their stay at or around Jakarta. Of course not every hotspot location in Jakarta already covered by WiFi Passport service yet (especially those owned government or local operator), yet worry not since there are a lot of location supports this service. To use this service, all you need to do is to be within the premise of a registered hotspot location, open WiFi Passport app (download it first from Play Store) and register your Google account at the app. Prepare your WiFi Passport voucher, type in the code from the voucher and you can go online through the hotspot location that participated in this WiFi Passport service. Google states that this service is provided exclusively for Android users and applicable for all Android smartphones and tablets that at the minimum running 2.2 (Froyo) Android OS.

Upon connected to a hotspot, you can go online in a session within 24 hours and when you’re moving to other hotspot location that supports WiFi Passport service, you’ll be automatically connected without re-login whatsoever. After the 24-hours session ended, you can start another 24-hours session with the same quota limit. Google sells this service based on how many days you can utilize the service. You can try this service by obtaining WiFi Passport promo voucher that was given for free during WiFi Passport event. The voucher allows you to be online for 10 days. The quota limit? You can use up to 3GB to download videos, music, photos, or other content (including browsing) for one-day period. The weekly quota is 7GB and the 30-days period one is 10GB. This means you automatically get 10GB from the promo voucher. No quota-based voucher in this service, so when you used up your quota, you can only wait for the voucher to enter its grace period then register a new voucher.

There are two different vouchers already available. Google joined hand with Indomog, a company specializing in online payment solution and widely known through various digital content such as game voucher, discount voucher, cellphone credits, music, comics, etc. Introduced as MOGPLAY, WiFi Passport vouchers provided by Indomog and Google are Rp 20.000-worth voucher to extend service period to 20 days and Rp 50.000-worth voucher to extend service period to 50 days. WiFi Passport service is currently only available in Jakarta and there were no news yet whether the service will be available in other cities in Indonesia. However, Google mentioned that they will provide this service in other countries too. Jakarta itself is the first city where Google provide this low-cost internet access service.

Outlets selling MOGPLAY voucher:

• 7 Eleven
• Avatar Game Zone
• Bengawan Solo
• Bigmart
• Blastoys
• Boxmart
• Carefour
• Circle K
• Dashnet
• Digigames
• Foodmart
• Hypermart
• International Design School
• JepangDoeloe
• Kenop Game
• Koperasi Atma Jaya
• Koperasi Bina Nusantara
• Koperasi Gatra Universitas Maranatha
• Koperasi Institut Bisnis dan Informatika Indonesia
• Lawson
• Multy Toys n Game
• NgopiDoeloe
• NXP Shop
• Ramayana

Where can we enjoy this low-cost internet access service from Google? Through its official blog, Google announced that there are already 50 location points that has been registered at Google’s WiFi Passport list. For Jakarta, there are 40 hotspot points where 15 are at North Jakarta, 12 at South Jakarta, 4 at East Jakarta, and 2 at West Jakarta. For other cities such as Depok, Google provides 2 hotspot points, South Tangerang 2 hotspot points, Bekasi 3, and Tangerang got 3 hotspot points. Most WiFi Passport hotspots are located at main roads at the areas mentioned above.