Paris, The City Of Wi-Fi?

TheMatt writes "An article at the IHT describes an effort to make Paris one big Wi-Fi hotspot. The project, with partners like RATP and Cisco, if approved, will place two or three antennae outside each of the 372 Metro stations in Paris and link them through an existing fiber network that runs through the subway tunnels. The current pilot project is centered along the route of Bus No. 38. You can sign up for access to the pilot which is free until June 30."

Comments

How Much?

[AlabamaMike]

I was excited when I heard the announcement of the wide availability of wireless access at Marriott hotels, and such. However, the next time I stayed at a Marriott I was appalled by the access fees. Something makes me think this will follow the same course. I know the article says it will be free up to June 30th, but what will the fees be after then? If they follow the above mentioned WiFi access fees, it will be some type of per minute charge. I do believe that the people who build these networks deserve compensation, but the per-minute toll tends to become a money printing machine for the company in control. Anyone know of a good compromise?

-A.M.

France and encyption?

[Gaetano]

Doesn't France have some really low limit on encryption? Like 48bit encryption?

Does that apply to wireless as well?

Anyone have more on this?

How would wifi really be used in an RATP station

[derekb]

Just thinking about my work I've done in Paris.. there are many times the stations are simply swamped with people. Laptop wifi is just out of the question. Far too many people and no real area to sit down. Besides, you only have minutes in a subway stop before your train comes. Even with Hibernate, my W2K box takes a while to be ready for use.

That really only leaves handheld devices, like a trusty ole iPaq. But.. with anyone with an iPaq (or laptop for that matter) probably also carries a mobile telephone - probably with bluetooth.

So in the 5 minutes you've got in the subway station, why not just go to street-level, turn on your PDA, and connect via GPRS. The iPaq with bluetooth is fantastic for downloading and running a quick scan on your email.

Plus if you really want to sit down and check your mail or surf, then zip off to a Brasserie for a coffee too. .. this idea just doesn't seem practical, but maybe I'm missing something. It seems more of a bandwagon folks are jumping on.

Gare du nord now has WiFi.. I spend many hours sitting there waiting for my trains. Hey that's a great idea - wire up the trains themselves with WiFi. A Thalys or TGV with WiFi access would rock.

Wi-Fi IN the Metro

[z_gringo]

Where they really need Wi-Fi is inside the metro tunnels. Surely they could install some leaky coax or seomthing that will make it work for the people actually travelling in the Trains.

I live in Paris (I'm not french, my work sent me here), and I have to travel the full length of Line 1 each day. The trip from Chateau de Vincennes to La Defense each day is 45 minutes to an hour, and if I could make my laptop work for that time, that would cut my workday by nearly the same amount as my travel time. I've been waiting for them to do the same thing with the mobile phones. Right now, the phones work in some tunnels, and not in others.

It's true that all the cables and fiber run through the metro tunnels, that makes it easy to hook up any building with fiber, because nothing is very far from a a Metro station. Both Cable Internet and DSL here in Paris is available everywhere.