16Wifi had been serving Tianjin citizens taking the bus for more than a year, providing them high speed in surfing the Internet.
"Once you get on the bus, you find 16Wifi in WLAN in settings, log in, and you gain access to the Internet. 16Wifi saves your mobile data while providing you shooting speed of Internet connection," said Wong, who lives near People's Gymnasium, Heping Zone, "however, recently we are unable to connect to the free wi-fi when we take the bus, and that hurts." It turned out that the free wi-fi on most of the buses in Tianjin has cut out.
And why was that? The enquiring result showed that 16Wifi's provider has recently suspended the corporation with its Tianjin partner as well as its partners in other cities including Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenzhen, whereas its services in only Beijing and Kunming remain. It is still unknown when the service will resume.
What behind the company's resigned retreat, revealed the person-in-charge, were the high operational costs and the struck Traffic-to-the-Business mode of 16Wifi. Nearly 600 million yuan was invested in the aggregate by 16Wifi's investors till now, used to purchase hardware, make media buyings with local public transit corporations, and buy traffic from telecommunications companies, etc. A range of factors, the decreasing of mobile data price included, led to a less-than-expected number of people who downloaded the company's app, which, then, resulted in its pressure roused by the enormous amount of costs that cannot be covered in a short period even with Traffic-to-the-Business mode.
16Wifi had been serving Tianjin citizens taking the bus for more than a year, providing them high speed in surfing the Internet.
