Japan Lets You Use Your Passport to Get Free Wi-Fi

Although Japan is renowned for having some of the best customer service on the planet, for various reasons, including language and cultural hurdles, it isn't known as the most tourist-friendly destination.

Some of those hurdles also extend into the tech arena, namely, Wi-Fi. Although sidling up to a café in Europe or North America and grabbing a bit of free Wi-Fi for your mobile device is common, finding such wireless access in tech-centric Japan's major cities remains notoriously difficult. But that's about to change.

A new program launched by NTT (Japan's largest telecom), is designed to serve foreign tourists on the hunt for Wi-Fi. For those who haven't traveled to Japan, the program might seem behind the times, but for anyone familiar with attempting to find Wi-Fi in Japan, this is huge news. (YouTube is littered with video commentary from frustrated travelers marveling at the lack of Wi-Fi access in such a technologically advanced country as Japan.)

Now, when a traveler arrives at a Japanese airport, they can present their passport and register for a Wi-Fi card that offers free Wi-Fi coverage via 45,000 hot spots in the eastern Japan area including Tokyo, Hakone, Mt. Fuji, Yokohama, Nagano, Nikko, Kusatsu, Tohoku, Hokkaido and Fukushima.

Additionally, a traveler outside of the country preparing to visit Japan can download the iOS or Android version of the NAVITIME for Japan Travel app and obtain an ID and password beforehand. The app also offers an augmented reality mode that shows you a Street View-style image of the location where an available Wi-Fi hotspot is located.

However, the access only lasts for 14 days (or 336 hours), just enough to get you used to the free access, but not long enough to be truly useful for anyone planning an extended stay in Japan.

According to the Nikkei, the program is also being directed by the Japanese government, which plans to use the initiative to get more buildings in the country to offer Wi-Fi access.

The trial program, which began earlier this year, will last until September 2014.

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The Countries With the Fastest Internet Are All in Asia

Asia is solidifying its place as the world's epicenter for top-speed Internet access, according to the latest research from Akamai Technologies expected to be published later today.

The top four places, ranked by their average peak connection speeds, were in Asia. Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and Singapore had the speediest broadband, in that order, according to the study that looked at traffic flowing through Akamai's global network from July through September. With Taiwan ranking No. 8, regions or countries in Asia made up half of the top ten.

Nearly all of the major Asia-Pacific markets tracked by Akamai improved their peak connection speeds by at least 12% compared with the previous year. Indonesia was the only one that dropped — a 30% decrease year-over-year to 9.7 megabits per second, putting the country at 115th on the list. India is the only major market in Asia that came in behind Indonesia, with an average peak speed of 9 Mbps. China's 11.3 Mbps average wasn't enough to break into the top 100, either.

People in Asia are certainly taking advantage of the fast connections. Singapore, Japan and South Korea were among the top five countries with the highest mobile-broadband penetration in 2012, according to a report from the International Telecommunication Union, an agency of the United Nations. Each of those countries exceeded 100 mobile-data connections per 100 inhabitants, which suggests people are using multiple connected devices.

The concentration of high-speed Internet in Asia could have positive economic effects that reverberate throughout the region.

"Internet – and particularly broadband Internet – has become a key tool for social and economic development, and needs to be prioritized, even in the world’s poorest nations," ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Toure said in a statement last year.

Israel, a fast-growing tech startup hub, jumped into fifth place in the Akamai ranking, thanks to a 55% improvement compared with the same period in 2012. The rest of the top 10 was comprised of smaller European countries.

Check out Bloomberg's list of the top 20 places to find the world's fastest Internet based on Akamai's findings. To those in the U.S. and the U.K., don't get your hopes up.

This article originally published at Bloomberg

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