500 Wi-Fi telephone booths debut in Shanghai

Citizens are able to enjoy the Wi-Fi network service provided by signals from a total of 500 telephone booths in downtown Shanghai locations, such as the Yu Garden, Huaihai Road and the People's Square, starting on March 15.

Terminals, including Wi-Fi laptops, iPads and mobile phones, can get connected to Internet within a 50-square-meter radius of the booths marked "Wi-Fi signal covered."

Signals of the wireless network called ChinaNet were found to be strong by some user spot tests. It is much faster than the 3G mobile wireless network, a Shanghai telecommunications official said.

China Telecom's 3G network offers a theoretical bandwidth of 3.1 Mbps, a download speed of 200 Kbps or even 300 Kbps at the fastest, but it is still overshadow by phone booth Wi-Fi. This up-and-coming channel features a theoretical bandwidth of up to 54 Mbps, which is 18 times faster than former and has a download speed of 2 Mbps at the fastest, 10 times faster than the former. It runs even smoother if connected with laptops or iPads.

Currently, there are two ways to enjoy this unique Wi-Fi service. One allows Android mobile phone users to log in via the ChinaNet dialer, which is free. The other is for wider Wi-Fi mobile users to log in to the ChinaNet Wi-Fi website through payment systems such as China UnionPay, Alipay, or China Telecom Cards.

It charges 0.03 RMB yuan per minute for phone booth Wi-Fi service, and charges are rounded to the nearest minute.

The 500 booths were upgraded early after Spring Festival by Shanghai telecommunications sectors, an officer said.

Local residents showed great appreciation for the phone booth upgrade, although they offered many suggestions about this unique Wi-Fi service.

"Phone booths should be upgraded in the same way that cell phones and computers have always been," one resident said.

By People's Daily Online

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