Minutes later, she approached me again and asked how to register. So I guided her along the registration process until we stumble upon something. You need to have a local mobile phone number in order to register for a Wireless@sg account.

Hello?!?! What is the chances of a tourist having a +65 mobile phone number? Why aren’t they allowed to register with their telephone number from their country?

Wireless@sg registration for tourist is rather tedious and troublesome. A Malaysian journalist from ZDnet Asia wrote about his ‘registration experience’ with Wireless@sg at Changi Airport early this year. No prize for guessing if he managed to login to our Nation’s Next Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure initiative.

Perhaps we can take a leaf out of Malaysia’s Wireless@kl book. Tourist can register for an account at Wireless@kl website before visiting Malaysia. The activation code is send to your mobile number and you don’t need a Malaysian mobile phone number to register for Wireless@kl. My Singapore mobile number works fine.

Look at Singapore’s Wireless@sg. We don’t even have a dedicated page for Wireless@sg. We have 3 separate registration page run by 3 operators. Won’t that add on to more confusion for the tourist? And none of them allow you to register if you don’t have a Singapore mobile phone number. If you are a tourist without a Singapore mobile phone, you can register at Changi Airport’s information counters. Seriously? Like if I’m at Raffles City at midnight and I need to use Wireles@sg, I have to go down to Changi Airport to register for an account? And what is the information counter’s opening hour?

If IDA is serious about allowing tourists/visitors use wireless@sg, I think they need to seriously re-look into the registration process. Else, please remove the link for tourist to register a wireless@sg account.

So in the end, the Korean tourist couldn’t register a Wireless@sg account. I have to login my account on her netbook so that she could send email back to her family and friends in Korea.

What Wireless@sg? Where got?

Haha. It’s not everyday you get to see a company advertising on a competitor’s website.

I still get the weird feeling whenever I’m using Qmax wireless@sg. Don’t like their shameless way of inserting advertisement at the bottom of every webpage that we visit. True enough that this is a free WIFI network. But the other two wireless@sg service provider didn’t do that. Didn’t IDA pay them enough?

The same question still lingers in my head. Can website owners sue creative for forcing advertisement on their website?

I’m now at Marina Square Starbucks. Here is the problem. Starbucks’ wireless@sg service provider is Singtel. There is another iCell wireless@sg network nearby. I think it’s from McDonalds.

So I login to the Singtel wireless@sg. After using the internet for awhile, I got disconnected from the Singnet wireless@sg for no reason and got connected to the iCell wireless@sg. (Since all 3 service provider are using wireless@sg as the router name) And I need to re-login to the iCell wireless@sg. And after awhile, I got disconnected from iCell wireless@sg for no reason again and got connected to the Singtel wireless@sg. And to make things worst, I need to re-login to Singtel wireless@sg AGAIN. And this thing goes on and on and on.

HELLO! What the heck is wrong with wireless@sg? Why do I keep getting disconnected? And the 3 wireless@sg service provider really should wake up their idea. It’s time they start sharing their database and not make users login multiple times when they switch between wireless@sg router. And why do I have to re-login to wireless@sg Singtel/iCell after I was disconnected when I login 5 minutes ago?

Anyone from wireless@sg reading this? Or you guys having difficulties connecting to wireless@sg too?

I’m logging off. Have enough of all these crap.

And because I keep complaining about wireless@sg, my old blog is now the 4th result in google if you search for the word wireless@sg. On top of Qmax and iCell website. OUCH.

And I’m not the only person complaining about wireless@sg. There are lots of complains about it, but these complains will most likely not be published on the mainstream media. The mainstream media still wants us to believe that wireless@sg is very good.

I got an interesting comment by one of the blog reader who posted his complain letters to wireless@sg and IDA. Below is the quote.

Dear CS,
Your service at Sim Lim Square level 6th has been down for almost 2 months. In year 2006
East Asia suffered nearly two months of outages and slow service after an earthquake damaged undersea cables near Taiwan. Even a damaged undersea cable can be fixed within two months period. Therefor, there is not reason you can’t complete your maintenance by now.
Thank you.

And below is the reply he got.

We understand your concerns. As the maintenance we are conducting in comparison to the incident you have made references to the Taiwan earthquake are vastly different, we seek your understanding in this matter.

Thank you.

I must agree with the CS. How can compare wireless@sg with the undersea cable?

For the Taiwan earthquake where the undersea cable broke, they only need to repair broken cables. Pretty straight forward.

For wireless@sg, everything needs to be fixed. From the top level management who decides the wireless@sg policy, the 3 service providers, the backbone and all the way to the routers that is serving the hotspot.

2 months where got enough time to repair everything?

So imagine my surprise when I saw a Creative Zen advertisement on the google main page last Friday afternoon. How did creative managed to convince google to run their ads on the main page.

Well, they didn’t. I was using wireless@sg from Qmax. For the uninitiated, Qmax belongs to Qala which belongs to Creative. So when you use wireless@sg by Qmax, they will insert their advertisement at the bottom of EVERY SINGLE PAGE you surf.

I thought IDA paid the 3 service provider to provide wireless@sg for free. Why is Qmax making use of this opportunity to push advertisements to users? The other 2 service provider, Singnet and iCell, only put advertisements on the login page. I’m fine with that since it is not obstructive. But why is Qmax so special that they have to place advertisement on the bottem of every page you surf?

And is this legal? Qmax is hijacking the website and throwing their advertisements on websites that doesn’t belongs to them. Can these website owners sue Qmax? I know the wireless network belongs to Qmax. But the website doesn’t. Does wireless internet network provider has the rights to push ads on these websites? Does website owners have the rights to demand royalties from Qmax for placing advertisement on their website without permission?

Any legal experts here?

It has been one year since you started. I wonder if anyone at IDA remembers that today is your birthday. If you were successful, I think everyone in Singapore will remember this day and celebrate your birth, But you are a great disappointment. Maybe because it is still early for us to pass judgement. Or it could be the over promise made by your parents.

There were talks of future plans like Wimax and stuff. Yes, Wimax sounds good. Longer range and faster access. But what the point of faster access if you can’t even log in to begin with?

I still remember my first experience with Wireless@sg. It wasn’t a pleasant one. In fact, there wasn’t any experience since I couldn’t connect on that faithful night. But I didn’t give up on you that night cause it was your first night. Perhaps you still need sometime to fine tune everything. But as the time goes by, it seems that the standard will never improve. Getting wireless@sg requires lots of luck. I guess I wasn’t lucky enough. That why I keep encountering problems with wireless@sg. Till I got so pissed off that I switched to mobile broadband lately.

I’m blogging this entry at Orchard Road now. Rightfully, there should be wireless@sg network here. But I decided to use my mobile broadband instead. Why risk having high blood pressure?

Anyway, Happy birthday wireless@sg. Hope the standards will improve by your next birthday.

Anyway, this entry is not for debating whether wireless@sg has failed or not. Instead, this entry is to let everyone knows that I will not twitter to complain about wireless@sg again.

Why?

Because I’ve just gotten myself a mobile broadband plan from Singtel. WOOHOO!!!!
No more searching for wireless@sg connection. No more cursing and swearing whenever wireless@sg disconnect me.

Recent events made me realise that I can’t depend on wireless@sg anymore. And some of the things that I’m about to embark on requires me to be connected while on the go. I can’t let wireless@sg ruin my opportunity. And I’m left with no choice but to subscribe to mobile broadband. Goodbye wireless@sg. I have enough of your nonsense.

I know most people are using M1 mobile broadband. But I choose Singtel because they are cheaper. On top of that, as a Singnet user, I’m given additional 30% discount. And the best part is, they give me the modem for free. (12 months contract)

The only thing about Singtel’s mobile broadband is that their modem only includes 1 short USB cable. They don’t have the useful ‘L’ shape USB. I wonder if they sell this in Sim Lim Sq.

Oh, this entry is posted using Singtel mobile broadband at HDB hub. There is Wireless@sg connection here. But I lazy to connect. My friend tried wireless@sg here and complained that it’s very laggy. So he took out his M1 mobile broadband. Seriously, how to work using wireless@sg?

Hmmm…. perhaps I should try surfing net on the train later. Wonder if it is stable when on the move.

Update: Tried surfing on train. Network still very stable. Didn’t notice any drop in speed. Cool stuff. Am loving it.

I’m not joking. This is not another sarcastic blog entry by my evil twin brother. I really wish they would stop wireless@sg. The quality of this free service is getting from bad to worst. I used wireless@sg 3 times this week. For 2 occasions, I was able to connect to the network but couldn’t load the login page. For the other occasion, I was able to login to internet but keep getting disconnected every 5 to 10 minutes. Wireless@sg is just too fustrating to use. It is totally not reliable at all. Someone asked me what do I expect from a free service. I guess we can’t really expect too much. Yes, it is a free service. But what is the point of being free when the service is unusable? I rather IDA stop this whole wireless@sg project. Revert all the hotspot back to the paying model that we had in the past. At least the wireless hotspot are more reliable back then. I rather pay than put up with this useless thing.

I was a paying customer for wireless hotspot before wireless@sg was here. At a small fee of $10 per month, I never have to worry if the network is available or not. The network is reliable and I don’t remember any occasion when I couldn’t logon to internet. Now that all the paying hotspot has been converted to wireless@sg, you can’t even pay to get a reliable hotspot. Yes, they do provide premium account where you pay to surf at faster speed. But how do you surf at faster speed when you can’t even load the login page? I was a paying customer for wireless@sg premium service for the first few months when it was launched until I was so fed up and decide to cancel the service. It just isn’t worth paying for a network that is unreliable.

I guess I should really go apply for M1 mobile broadband. I cannot afford to have unreliable network if I want to work on the move in the future. At least M1 mobile broadband is more reliable than wireless@sg.

Oh, btw, advance happy birthday to wireless@sg. I still remember the media hoo-ha one year ago when you are born. The media is still saying good things about you. I guess either they never tried using you or they are still in denial. I’m totally disappointed with wireless@sg. And I’m not the only person complaining about it. Saw several people complaining about wireless@sg too. Most of them have switched to M1 mobile broadband.

IDA: Look, if your great wireless@sg is so good, WHY would anyone still want to apply for M1 mobile broadband? Think about it.

This entry is written on MS Word at MW Starbucks on 9 Nov 2007, 7pm. Wireless@sg is unavailable, as usual.