In most countries, motorists are told not to use their mobile phones while at a petrol station. However, in Thailand, the state is encouraging the opposite by offering free Wi-Fi at petrol filling stations as part of the Smart Thailand $1 billion mega-project.
Thailand’s ICT Ministry announced the launch of the service with a planned 1,000 PTT petrol stations to have free WiFi by the end of the year, 500 of which would be online within the next three months.
The service is provided by state-owned TOT Corporation which has put aside a budget of $320 (10,000 baht) per access point. Each PTT petrol station will have one or two access points and each access point will support up to 16 simultaneous users.
TOT will invest $320,000 (10 million baht) in the project which will be clawed back with the petrol stations paying a small fee of $32 (1,000 baht) each month.
It is understood that the funds will be from TOT’s universal service obligation funds.
Users will be limited to two hours a day with each session not longer than 30-minutes. TOT said they can expect a typical speed of 2 Mbps.
The ultimate irony is that the pronunciation of Wi-Fi in the local language literally means inflammable. Local forums have erupted in ridicule at the prospect of filling station attendants putting up a sign reminding people not to use their mobile phones while at the same time promoting the use of the free Wi-Fi service on the very same phones they were told not to use.
This is not the first time that the Smart Thailand project has run into conflict with common sense. Back in February, the chief of Bangkok’s tollways said that TOT would be rolling out free Wi-Fi on expressways that would cut-out as soon as someone left the tollway and returned to normal, non-toll roads. This caused an outcry among road safety activists who pointed out the obvious that driving a car at speed on an expressway was not a good time to be updating Facebook, even if it was for free.
However, the three-month time frame passed without any rollout, to the relief of commuters who use the roads daily.
It should be noted that an early episode of Mythbusters declared the myth of using mobile phones near petrol pumps causing fires to be “busted.”