Faster than a Pringles can!
Paris wants blanket wireless Internet cover by the end of 2007, helping to make it the most connected capital city in the world, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe said on Tuesday.
Under a new plan, the city hopes to set up 400 free WiFi access points next year and allow Internet service providers to install antennae on strategically-located public property.
“We will act fast and firmly… to create the most favorable conditions for Paris,” Delanoe told reporters at city hall. “It is a decisive tool for international competition and thus important for the city.”
The plan also calls for slashing taxes on companies that lay down fiber optic cables in a drive to have 80 percent of all buildings within the city connected to so-called ‘ultra-high speed’ fiber optic networks by 2010.
“Sixty percent of Parisian households already have high-speed connections. … Our goal will be not only to maintain this but also to move a step ahead,” Delanoe said.
The free wireless access points — to be located in parks, squares, libraries, and public areas — will be set up by private firms that win contracts to be awarded in early 2007.
The project will also experiment with free WiFi access for an entire city quarter by the end of 2007.
Municipal elections for Paris happen in 2007. Does anyone think there will be a problem getting this past the City Council, next week?
Camembert-tenna? Patrick — eat your heart out!
I’m doing my bit too. My company is setting free wi-fi around our building which is across the street from a college. Two restaurants will benefit from my coverage too, not just the college kids with laptops.
Where am I? On the island of Montreal, in the suburb of Ste-Genevieve, province of Quebec. Yes I speak French and write it too.
So even the Canadian French cousins are participating.
Well with no one working the French need something to do with all that free time. Wireless on the dole seems like a great idea.
Ted Stevens for Mayor of Paris!
It would all be great,
BUT, the telco’s are going to complain.
What? Where’s the telcos suing to stop this? Oh yeah, that’s right… the French actually LISTEN to their electorate. Hmm… we should try that over here sometime. Nah — it’ll never work. Citizens are far to stupid to know what they want — let the corporations tell them.
Mike T
yep,
In the US, the telco’s really complain, and call the lawyers.
They’ve tried in a few palces, and IN COME THE LAWYERS…