Vietnamese taxi firm to provide free Wi-Fi in 1,000 cabs

One thousand Mai Linh cabs in Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Da Nang will feature free Wi-Fi beginning this March as part of a pilot project, the company announced March 16 on its website.

The firm said that the project was initiated on December 18, 2015 and installation of the service in 1,000 taxis will be finished on May 31 this year.

Ho Huy, chairman of Mai Linh Group, said that the goal is to make Wi-Fi accessible to passengers and create additional revenue streams by offering more advertising channels to businesses.

In the experimental phase, 600 cabs operating in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 and 3 and 200 taxis in both Hanoi and Da Nang will be equipped with Wi-Fi devices, Huy said.

The chairman added that the company will decide whether to install additional Wi-Fi devices in its remaining cabs after assessing customer satisfaction with the project at the end of this May.

Takashi Morimoto, SoftBank Telecom Vietnam representative, one of the co-partners of the project, said that the devices are also able to record the cab’s speed, street status, traffic congestion, and more.

The data collected by the devices can be transferred to a main server and bounced back to a screen indicator in the cab to inform the driver and passengers of any information that might help them select an optimal route, he explained.

SoftBank Telecom Vietnam Co. Ltd. has two offices in Vietnam – one in Hanoi and one in Ho Chi Minh City.