One thing that I’ve noticed when I first arrived in Thailand is that I’m picking up Wi-Fi signals everywhere, but almost none of them are free. Even the Starbucks I’ve been to, and I must have gone to at least 8 of them so far, all told me they don’t have free Wi-Fi. There are other coffee shops that do, such as Wawee Coffee, but you usually only get 1 hour free for each drink you purchase.

There are a few Wi-Fi hotspots, however, that do offer limited Wi-Fi connections if you fill out some information for them. You’ll be given an account to log in with after you sign up. What may not be so obvious, though, is that you can create as many accounts as you want (just provide fake information) and you can use these accounts at other hotspots associated with the same carrier.

The sign-up link for the free account is not always provided when you connect to many of the hotspots, but you can still access it if you have the URL. The Wi-Fi hotspot may also not say “free”, but you can still use your free account to login.

Here are the steps:

1. Connect to a Wi-Fi hotspot that says “ICT Free Wifi by AIS”, “@AISwifi“, or “@3BB_Wifi” (or any variation in the name that includes ‘”3BB”, this is what I usually use as I see them everywhere).

2. Go to this link to create an account using bogus information: http://www.ais.co.th/ictfreewifi/. You don’t need to provide a valid e-mail address as they’ll display your username and password after you submit your information.

3. Log-in using the provided user account. With the “ICT Free Wifi” hotspots, you get 5-hours per month. With the “3BB”, you get 30 minutes at a time, but you can easily re-login by clicking the “login again” link and you don’t need to re-type your information. These 30-minute sessions also appear to be unlimited.

Most of the time, I’m connected to the “3BB” hotspots which gives the 30-minutes free before requiring you to re-login. But since I’m on the Internet for long periods of time, I found this annoying enough that I signed up for for unlimited Wi-Fi for 1 month for 99 baht (roughly $3.33).