Free Wifi in coffee shops / Mc Donalds etc advice please : )

[kotatsuneko]

Hi everyone, it's been a good while since I posted here!

Well, an old friend is staying at my aunt in law's place in-between Asagaya & Ogikubo, Tokyo and needs to get online. There's no open wifi available in the building, due to it being occupied by older people.

I haven't been to Japan since '07 so am clueless as to giving him advice. He has a netbook with wifi built in, and I know some places used to offer free wifi to customers, but am not sure where to advise him to go.

Soooo, I'd really appreciate it if you guys n gals could possibly spare a moment to say where:

* Offers free wifi

* & If a customer needs to input a username & password? (do they need to ask for a paper card with the details?)

* if there are any places where you just turn your machine on and Windows 7 can just detect it and connect?

Really sorry to take up space on the board for this, but he really needs to check his mail regularly and get his net fix on...

Thanks for reading and I hope you lot are all well!

[omae mona]

Nice to see you back kotatsuneko.

Starbucks has had a pretty widespread rollout of free wifi in the last year. I am not that much of an expert and have only tried it once or twice myself. The main catch is that since it needs you to sign up and verify with an email account, it's critical that you sign up ahead of time. Engrish link here:

http://starbucks.wi2.co.jp/pc/index_en.html

Based on a quick visual scan of their store list, the pickings look pretty slim in Suginami-ku. But looks like they do have a store with Wifi right at Asagaya station:

スターバックスコーヒー 阿佐ヶ谷駅前店
東京都杉並区阿佐谷南3-58-1
http://300.wi2.co.jp/area/1/sbj_area/?c ... b75b766cb1

Not sure if this helps, but thought it would be worth posting just in case.

[yanpa]

There's no open wifi available in the building, due to it being occupied by older people in Japan.

FTFY

Other than that, like omae mona says, Starbucks is the best bet, and the times I've used it it's been pretty good. Many branches also have power sockets now. However depending on the location they do get crowded.

Internet cafes might also be an option; I'm not sure if many have wifi for BYOD, but in the past I've had no problems unplugging the network cable from the computer supplied and attaching it to my own laptop.

[kotatsuneko]

Omae mona - mate, this is incredibly helpful, have signed up and will call him tonight with the login, incredibly helpful they have an Engrish page! If you are ever in London, I owe you a pint! Didn't think you would remember me I figured that since I left Japan any opinion was rather moot so stopped posting here. Looking back, my posts were pretty embarrassing anyhow, for the most part...I really appreciate your help, thank you, this is incredibly helpful!

Thanks for the info yanpa, that's very encouraging! Heh, at my aunts old place, there was a good signal from a free wifi hub a French student had purposely left open, which was sweet, but yes, the new place is most definitely as you describe : ) I know when my wife last went back there were some recommendations, which were of great help, but most of those places have either closed down, or he couldn't find them, so Starbucks it is...Asagaya is only a 15 minute walk, or one train stop from my aunts place, which is good.

Look, I truly appreciate the help here, if you ever need anything from London, feel free to ask anytime

[GomiGirl]

But don't you need a confirmation email or text message for Starbucks WiFi?

My MIL is visiting right now and she doesn't have mail account set up on her iPhone and is using airplane mode as no roaming and not able to get normal text messages or calls. She has a prepaid sim that she uses at home that has no roaming so can't even turn it on briefly to get a message.

We had no luck getting the Starbucks WiFI set up and she can only used non-password wifi or a password that she can input. Fine for home and her hotels etc but no good for starbucks.

We mainly use this so she can use What'sapp so we can text this way.

[Coligny]

But don't you need a confirmation email or text message for Starbucks WiFi?

?webmail on internet cafe to check the confirmation ?

Anyway, they'd be better only disabling roaming and leaving wifi on instead of going on all airplane mode...

[GomiGirl]

Even if disabling roaming and turning off airplane mode, it shows SOS only. So no messages in or out. No calls in or out (unless to emergency numbers).

This is MIL - she doesn't know how to set up webmail. She has her email set up back on home computer and is lucky to be able to get that to work. Sadly, I can't walk her through it as her home is a long way from mine and she is on a Windows machine. I have tried a few times but ended up with such a computer rage that it wasn't worth it.

I think your cats are more familiar with using basic software than they are.

[kotatsuneko]

Hi GomiGirl, the way it worked for us was I registered for my mate online, and got a confirmation email, which had a link in I had to click to confirm the account setup. When he went to Starbucks, he just entered the username and password I had set up and et voila free, albeit very slow internet access... And apparently you can get a discounted second cup of coffee there if you order a second one in the same visit.