People riding the Taipei MRT’s Tamsui-Xinyi and Bannan lines this month will be able to enjoy free Wi-Fi service at all stations and in the trains.

Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC, 台北捷運) and service provider Free AD WiFi (全林實業) officials yesterday told a news conference in Taipei that users would be able to access Wi-Fi service for free in 30-minute installments.

Users will be able to connect to “TPE-Free AD Wifi” without having to create an account, but they will have to click on an advertisement to access the 30 minutes of free Wi-Fi service, which can be repeated unlimited times, the companies said.

The service is expected to be extended to all Taipei MRT lines by the end of November.

The free Wi-Fi service will use Far EasTone’s (遠傳電) 4.5-generation wireless mobile telecommunications technology, Free AD WiFi president Lin Chuan-chi (林全馳) said.

The service would be an improvement over the “Taipei Free” Wi-Fi network, which did not limit users’ bandwidth usage, meaning that some users could affect the system’s overall performance.

The new service will provide an Internet connection speed of 70 megabits per second (Mbps) in the MRT trains, which can be used by about 100 people per car, he said.

Bandwidth limits for each user will be 3Mbps upload speed and 1Mbps download speed, which should be enough for viewing YouTube videos, he said.

Asked about the requirement that users first click on an ad, TRTC chief secretary Chen Hui-min (陳慧敏) said the Taipei City Government had debated the issue for a long time, but otherwise it would be impossible to provide free quality Wi-Fi for every resident with the government’s limited budget.

After the service is expanded to all Taipei MRT lines, the service is expected to be used more than 6 million times a month, Lin said, adding that the revenue in Taiwan and Southeast Asia might exceed NT$4 billion (US$132.3 million) in one year.