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

That would be excellent...

[sulli]

except, of course, on the days when the network goes on strike. (Just like the RATP.)

one bright side

[greechneb]

One plus... they already have a great tower to cover all of Paris.

It's right <a href="http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/
"><b> here</b></a>

Pilot?

[swordboy]

I just signed up using my location as Detroit...

*That* should give the Cisco engineers something to work for...

Re:Pilot?

[Alien Being]

Maybe it was Antoine de La Mothe Cadillac, founder of Detroit in 1701.

doubts

[selderrr]

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.

Re:doubts

[Usquebaugh]

Look up pervasive computing. Start to think outside the stupid screen/keyboard paradigm. If you have the infrastructure then the apps will come.

Re:doubts

[stefanlasiewski]

Look up pervasive computing. Start to think outside the stupid screen/keyboard paradigm. If you have the infrastructure then the apps will come.

Not always. There needs to be enough demand for your service

The American telecom industry built a hell of alot of infrastructure, and many of those companies went out of business because there was no demand for their service.

How many groundbreaking wireless companies have gone out of business in the last couple decades?

Personally, I have little desire to pay $30 a month to carry a WIFI computer around with me all of the time. The best thing about computers is that you can get away from them.

Re:doubts

[mirko]

A typical Parisian doesn't spend 15 minutes per day in the subs but at least more than an hour.
There are at least 10 million people who live and work circa 50km from the Eiffel Tower. If they can spend their 3-4 daily travel hours surfing the net or IRC-ing their f3ll0ws, then they'll find it easier.

Re:doubts

[Elvisisdead]

Exactly. Look how well Ricochet did. It was built, and nobody came (no pun intended). It might make a comeback, as predicted, but we'll see.

Re:doubts

[Zenin]

Ricochet had it right when they started, then simply screwed it up over and over again as time passed.

$29.95/month + I think $5 or $10 for modem rental, total about $40/month. Reasonable, if only 28.8.

Oh, now you have to buy the modem for $300 upfront, well shit that's a high but it's a 1 time charge. This is the deal when I signed up. I loved my Ricochet access, most often working a 1/2 day at the coffee shop near the train, eat lunch, take train in to the office for the other 1/2. Some of my most productive coding was in that coffee shop. 28.8 was more then resonable for email and "work related" web surfing, and in a way it was a plus because it kept me from even trying to play games over it.

Ricochet was great, the network was expanding, they had a huge deal cut with MCI/Worldcom (yah, but at the time this sounded good) to expand the network and upgrade it. When I signed up they promised speeds of 128k for the next modem versions (with "substantial" rebate for current modems) or 64k with existing modems.

The new 128k service rolls out, for like $80/month. They never mentioned a more then double price hike for the new service when they signed me up... Oh yah, and if I want anything more then 28.8 I'll need to upgrade, my $300 less then a year old modem that was going to 64k on the new network now wasn't. We'll give you a $100 rebate off a new $300-500 modem for having the eariler one, but we'll still charge you $80/month to use it.

"Thankfully" I still had my modem, speed, and price that I liked (28.8 was fine at $30/month). But no new such modems or accounts were offered. If anyone new wanted Ricochet, they needed to shell out huge cash for the 128k "service" which still had much less coverage then the 28.8.

They were bankrupt within a year.

Just as they went bankrupt (same month) they decide to "renew" my annual subscription for another $300 charge to my Wellsfargo credit card. Never mind that A) the service didn't exist anymore, B) I had canceled it, and C) that credit card account itself had been CANCELED over a YEAR previous. Wellsfargo still let them put a charge on it without question. They said I could "clearly dispute it and it would be no problem", but later said I had to first personally try to resolve it with the vender. ...What, the now dead company with no active phone or employees? Explaining this, did nothing. I finally gave up and decided if they want "their" cash they will have to pry it from my cold, dead fingers.

To this day I still get a creditor of the month trying to get me to pay that now $500 "dept" that Wellsfargo allowed to be placed by a bankrupt company onto a credit card acount that had been canceled for over a year.

Fuck Ricochet and Fuck Wellsfargo. Long live WiFi!!!!

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.

Wow, is it enough bandwidth?

[Musashi Miyamoto]

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.

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?

Re:France and encyption?

[Virus1984]

There was a 48-bit limit, it was pushed to 56-bit in 1998 then the limit disappeared in 1999 to let e-commerce grow.

Re:WiFi legal in France?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a brief skirmish over the spectrum, but the French military quickly surrendered any reservations.

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.

Largest Wi-Fi antenna EVER.

[pmbuko]

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.

WiFi Icon = FRANCE

[Pzykotic]

Hey, that icon slashdot uses for WiFi stories certainly looks familiar...

free wifi cities

[asv108]

Seattle, The Bay area, and many other cities have community driven, completely free, no sign-up, public AP's using donated bandwidth. I'm sure there are many others too..

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?

Re:Good plan but doesn't show scalability of wifi.

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh....Wasn't the Eiffel Tower designed as a radio antenna? Get out the linksys and some jumper cables...

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.

Re:Wi-Fi IN the Metro

[z_gringo]

Good points, and good questions. Yes, since, I start at the beginning of the line (both ways), I can ALWAYS get a seat. And yes, it fills up quickly, and through the city centre, it's standing room only, which doesn't bother me because I'm seated. :-) Anyway, These days I can read the newspaper with no problem, and that's what I do each day on they way in. (I also try to just miss the rush hour on the way in, since I have some flexibility.) The laptop takes up even less room than the newspaper.

I would feel completely safe on line 1. It is all open between the cars. There are indeed some lines where I would feel uncomfortable with anything expensive, but Line 1 is really safe.

I wouldn't be too concenered with Corporate espionage really. I would obviously save anything really sensitive for when I arrived at the office, however, it is important to remember that there are always people reading over your shoulder. They aren't necesarily spying.. They are just bored. :-)

So, in conclusion, yes, it's pretty safe, and it would work for me, but on other lines, (2 and 7 for example), I would be much more reluctant to try to do much real work.

Not the first city-wide 802.11 network, by far

[gigabitme]

In addition to the networks listed in other posts, this one has been running for about a year and a half now.

Tallinn already has something similar

[Midnight Thunder]

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.

Re:Good plan but doesn't show scalability of wifi.

[z_gringo]

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.

Viva WiFi!

[nxs212]

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.

Atlanta receiving something similar

[taeric]

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.