Time ago, I already hinted about using public wifi access in Batam:
https://samleong.shop/showpo...ostcount=33339
I have some good news. The access speed of wifi.id is FAST now! It works very well. And it's so cheap. I repeat my old post updating the text.
----
If you don't buy a local SIM card (e.g., TelkomSel Simpati) to use a smartphone in Batam with a local number, but you prefer to keep using your usual smartphone with your usual SIM (e.g., to keep using your WeChat and WhatsApp IDs), then you are bound to using WiFi to access Internet. In most hotels, the wifi is good (in Formosa it is excellent: I just tested it and I reached up to 11 Mbit/s for both download and upload!), but the wifi provided by restaurants and cafes mostly sucks.
I gave up using the wifi of JCO and restaurants in Nagoya Hill because they are slow and run out of IP addresses to assign. But there is a good alternative: the
@wifi.id network, available almost anywhere in Nagoya, Jodoh and I assume around Batam cities.
One week access is only 20k (YES: 2 SGD only for 7 days!) payable by SMS from a Simpati SIM card (I have TWO phones: my Galaxy smartphone and an old Nokia with Simpati SIM card). Once you pay by sending an SMS from your phone, you receive an SMS with ID and password.
Even better: when you try access to wifi.id, it gives you a special word to send to sms, which is associated to your phone from where you accessed wifi.id. Therefore, in most cases you don't even need to login with id and pw.
The speed of @wifi.id is very good in Nagoya, MUCH BETTER than just 3 months ago. So fast to do web browsing without too much lag, and even fast enough to place skype phone calls with good quality.
With wifi.id, now I can be online in most outdoor places of Batam around Nagoya without expensive data roaming.