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TOT Hotspot @ Chiang Mai International Airport --- or --- How not to run a hotspot


We had a terrific holiday in Chiang Mai (more on that in a later post when the pictures are sorted out) and we are on our way back. To kill time at airports I like to catch up on email and my news reader, in short: I want WIFI. Luckily there seemed to be some. TOT Telecom provides a pay-for internet access. While by now I would expect WIFI as a free airport service this seemed to be better than nothing. A quick check showed, that there were no contact information except a Thai phone hotline (and no FAQ, Online form, contact email). I happily started the procurement process (for a ridiculous THB 200/hour). From there everything went downhill. Being cautious I use Firefox with the NoScript Plugin. So whenever the in order process a new base domain would be used that depends on JavaScript it wouldn't work. I started off:
  • http://portals.tothotspot:8080/home?CPURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org%2F
  • http://www.tothotspot.th.com/ordernow.php
    http://www.tothotspot.th.com/service3.php?BaTcHiD=1709 : Here the next button did require JavaScript. They just verified that you enter a username and a email (nicely disguised as password field
    http://www.tothotspot.th.com/service4.php : Here the hand-off to the ePayment provider happens
  • https://www.krungsrimobile.com/merchant/payment.php?SomeMoreStuff : Without JavaScript active a nasty error message puts an end to the purchase: You are not authorized or Data encryption error !!! (Step1.2) .. Please contact your merchant's webmaster to investigate this error.
  • https://www.krungsriepay.com/webapp/PaymentManager/CardBaseValidation. When enabling the page the year for the credit card (a dropdown field) wasn't populated. I had to allow https://seal.verisign.com/.
Finally the return page showed up with a double JavaScript error and no username/password information. Eventually the process worked and the information is in my email which of course I only can access with an online connection.
So to recap: I had to trust 6 different hosts for their JavaScript to finally fail to gain WIFI access. Well I guess they don't make much money on their hotspots that way. At least investigating this killed the waiting time.

Posted by on 23 November 2007 | Comments (5) | categories: Buying Broadband

Comments

  1. posted by Darryl Miles on Saturday 24 November 2007 AD:
    I agree about free wifi. I believe it's free in Singapore airport, and free now in Australia - http://www.itwire.com/content/view/11075/1101/

    Daz
  2. posted by Wee Meng, Chew on Sunday 25 November 2007 AD:
    Free internet access in Singapore Changi Airport will only be available from 1st Jan 2008 - http://app.mfa.gov.sg/pr/read_content.asp?View,8365,
  3. posted by Stephan H. Wissel on Wednesday 28 November 2007 AD:
    In the beginning there were quite some hiccups but now it usually works very well. It even is already available in the airport 5 weeks ahead of schedule. I'm not sure about speed for the free part since the "premium" version came with my ADSL contract.
    Of course it suffers from the generally under dimensioned international gateways.
  4. posted by Slawek Rogulski on Wednesday 28 November 2007 AD:
    Has anyone had any positive or otherwise experiences with Wireless@SG?
  5. posted by chamemanesi on Thursday 20 February 2014 AD:
    Good