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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."
I thought there was some legal issue w.r.t. WiFi in France -- that the 2.4ghz spectrum area was reserved by the French military?
except, of course, on the days when the network goes on strike. (Just like the RATP.)
sulli
RTFJ.
One plus... they already have a great tower to cover all of Paris.
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I just signed up using my location as Detroit...
*That* should give the Cisco engineers something to work for...
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
I don't know how succesfull this can be... There are 2 potential markets (leaving kids with portables as a marginal marketshare)
- people of paris : why would they subsribe to such service ? They likely have a home in paris, with internet access a lot cheaper, more reliable and more secure.
- visiting bussinessmen : why would they subsrcibe either ? Most hotels have access for a reasonable fee, and are not subscription based.
Additionally, I seriously wouldn't want to sit with my portable open on a bench near a subway entrance in autumn/winter when it gets dark after 19:00. Subway stations are not exactly known for their safety, and walking around with a 2000Euro piece of electronics is asking for trouble.
Additionally, i consider it silly to first sit in the subway for 15 minutes wit haportable and no connection, and then finally getting out in the open where you have to sit again to connect. Wouldn't it be much better to put the base stations INSIDE the trains ?
Call me stupid, but my guess is that they'd better focus on appartment buildings : place a wifi hotspot on top of it, and you've got you whole building connected for low fee and without having to rewire the damd thing.
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
-A.M.
Pimpin' all the Karma Hoes!
Does 802.11(b or g) enough bandwidth to handle that many people? Not that everyone has a WiFi connection, but when you provide ubiquitious access, the applications will be created that utilize it.
I don't think that 802.11 can handle more than a handful of users before it is swamped. I imagine that the city will be subdivided somehow so that broadcast traffic from one machine isn't repeated to every node in the city.
can we call it Freedom Net? :)
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?
that was a long time ago - see this press release for example talking about wifi activity.
http://www.3g.co.uk/PR/Feb2003/4849.htm
Look at the RATP's metro map. Unless they're planning to include all of the RER stations in that, Paris will not be totally covered by Wi-Fi. Even given a 300-metre radius, which is probably being hopelessly optimistic, you won't have full coverage the way you do with GSM wireless coverage - the stations are usually more than 300m apart, not to mention the 'shadows' created by buildings, etc. in the path of the signal.
Now, if they mounted transmitters on each wireless tower or minitower or microtower, you'd have 100% coverage of the city.
Nevertheless, it is a good idea.
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
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.
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.
I can see it now: Pringles cans mounted all over the Eiffel Tower...
The hard part is finding enough French people to eat the chips.
Hey, that icon slashdot uses for WiFi stories certainly looks familiar...
Here in State College, PA I usually eat at a locally owned coffee and bagel shop called Irvings or a large regional grocery chain called Wegmans. Both places offer free wifi, the local Starbucks doesn't even offer wifi and if it did you would need to pay ~$6/hr.. If two places are of equal quality, but one offers free access, where would you go?
Uhhh....Wasn't the Eiffel Tower designed as a radio antenna? Get out the linksys and some jumper cables...
uhm, I've done this in Bryant Park, New York, and it was a great way to stay connected to people at home in Europe, without wires, without cost. I think that experiment is still running
http://www.nycwireless.net/
This is exactly what I was looking for as I'm going to Paris next week. There are lots of people wandering around the middle of town with laptops, sitting in the park with laptops. Of course you wouldn't be sitting outside with one in winter - however I don't really think that's the period they'd envisage most users. Using a laptop on the metro is not really a practical proposition.
Possible users?
Business travellers using one of the major stations with an hour to kill in the cafe.
Tourists emailing home.
Day trippers from somewhere else in Europe who want to email home/check the internet for something (Gare du Nord is a terminals for Eurostar).
All depends how much it costs of course. I'll definitely use it when it's free.
THe local starbucks charges 30$ per month. HEllOOOOOO! I tend to study at starbucks, so i could easly rack up 3-6 hours a week, but im not willing to shell out 30 bucks for that, especially if im not there for a few weeks. THink aobut it, anyone who has a wireless laptop, probably already is paying for a connection at home. THis would dprobably almost double the cost of most peoples connections. I woul dlove to see figures of how the service is working, as far as subscribers.
MAybe if they went with 1$ a day, i would have used it. OR maybe a discount plan, for every 1$ of coffee you buy, you get a percentage off the 30$
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
re/read the article. There is no service on the metro. I know, i've read about this elsewhere, and that's definitely true on the test, and will probably be true for the final version due to problems with ground penetration (the wifi hotspots are above ground, stations are just a convenient location).
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.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
In addition to the networks listed in other posts, this one has been running for about a year and a half now.
If appearance and essence were the same thing, there would be no need for science -- Dr. Michio Kaku
a good joke about wardriving and France's military surrender history, but nothing springs to mind.
/. geeks go wardriving and are asked about it, the French would surrender to them anyway ;)
I'm willing to bet if enough
So rise up, all ye lost ones, as one, we'll claw the clouds.
I have been in contact with a friend in Tallinn, Estonia and he tells me that Tallin is full of publically accessible Wi-Fi hot spots. You can see more on this page, referenced at Wifi Free hot spots.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Paris is more wired than any city I know of. The Metro tunnels are packed with fiber, and there is always a Metro station nearby within the city limits. Also, the RER (Regional Trains) are packed with fiber, which extends the reach of Cable companies, and anyone else who wants to be part of the telecom crowd.
Also, just as in the U.S., the long distance rail has loads of fiber running alongside it.
All of this adds up to make france a VERY well connected country. Almost Anything you could possibly need will be found on the internet in France.
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
This seems to be translated from English by an automatic translation engine :)
:
In French you would say
Moquez vous de nous tant que vous voulez, mais au moins nous on a une connection WiFi pour nos ordinateurs.
Sorry I didn't understand the last sentence !
Hey, I see nothing wrong with sipping cappuchinos at the café, ogling at well-endowed waitresses and reading the latest slashdot article on my tablet..AND gettting paid for doing remote desktop support :)
On Fridays substitute coffee with cheap red wine.
While much smaller in scope, Atlanta, GA is receiving something similar. The folks over at www.freebeeatlanta.com are setting up hotspots in a major area of Atlanta for free use. I am somewhat skeptical of their business model, though I have high hopes for it.
Their old site mentioned possibly rolling out in other cities, as well; unfortunately, the new site is less than informative.
The WiFi pilot at the Gare du Nord uses prepaid cards. The cheapest card costs 5 euros and provides 20 minutes of access (about US$5.65).