There is no such animal. Just go as you please.

I'm at PEK T3 international now, and was able to log onto the Airport Free wifi without going through any sort of gateway. Last week, I had to enter my phone number and get a text message with login info.

You mean they finally remove the gateway thingy?

How very un-Chinese! Great if it lasts.

tb

I'd be surprised if it did last because I don't know of any other airports in the entire world with completely unsecured and ungated WiFi (at a minimum, there is usually some sort of splash page with terms and conditions). I actually didn't mind the cell phone enrollment drill (same as Starbucks)... far better than the passport scan thing or giving out pieces of paper with 20-character username/passwords in the lounges, some of which didn't work.

I don't mind the handphone log in but it only worked with a chinese number?

I was in PEK & CAN and couldn't use the wifi because I dropped my phone with my Chinese number with it. My fault though.

At Starbucks, at least, you need to have a China Mobile number, which means that Unicom people need to ask their Mobile friends to help them out (generally not super hard because Mobile has something like 800 million subscribers).

When I was in PEK last month, they had a machine that you could pop your passport in to get access to the wifi if you did not have a phone. Connection was decent. (I was able to make a VOIP call without any problem.) However, it would be great to eliminate the passport step.

In PVG last week there was no 'cell phone step'