Free Wi-Fi turns Paris in to a Global Digital City

You’re sitting inside your local Starbucks or <insert preferred coffee shop here> and you’ve got your laptop open on your lap. These days, there is really very little you can do without the internet, and coffee shops seem well aware of this fact. But it is only natural that the desire for internet accessibility outside of the workplace or home is spreading from outside the doors of your favorite café.

Universities and schools have been blanketing their campuses with Wi-Fi (wireless internet) and now the local governments, councils and municipalities are following suit.

Municipal Wi-Fi is its catch name, and it’s the joy and dream of many a yuppy, geek or business person. Sitting in a park? Jump on the net! Riding the train? Jump on the net! Walking out in to the middle of traffic… wait until you cross, then jump on the net!

Paris has just launched the largest European free Wi-Fi network as part of Bertrand Delanoë’s plan to turn Paris into a “world digital city”. Almost 400 wireless hotspots are popping in to existence in parks, gardens, squares, libraries, and anywhere else one can imagine.

BT and Fon are combining to create the long awaited and largest Wi-Fi community in the world, situated in the UK. Fon, founded in Spain back in 2006, allows users to share their internet access over a secure Wi-Fi channel for a 50% percent cut in their fees, so that those in the surrounding area are also able to use the net. This essentially creates a new Wi-Fi hotspot with every user who signs in to this agreement.

With BT – the UK’s largest ISP – now signed up with Fon to allow this program to be initiated in the UK, and with a possible 3 million hubs for Fon to work from, the hotspots will be growing thick and fast.

US locales will be wondering where there Muni Wi-Fi is, and sadly for a lot of places like San Francisco and Chicago, the answer is that no one really knows. About six months ago anyone in the tech industry would have guaranteed everyone would be on the net anywhere in SF, but since a massive internal restructuring by Earthlink, the internet giant has pulled out of numerous contracts to install Muni Wi-Fi that has left cities like San Francisco without any immediate plans.

Lastly, and more in line with our coffee theme, Starbucks and their new bed-partners Apple are finally initializing their in-store “Now Playing” service. The program that is designed to run in tandem with new wireless enabled iPods and iPhones allows people to find out what is playing in Starbucks, and if they like the song, buy the song over the iTunes store.

Launching this past Tuesday, 600 stores went live and, though there were a few glitches (check this article here), the promotion seems to be going down well.

So while some of us (*glares menacingly at Australian governments*) will be without Muni Wi-Fi for some time, the popular centers of “culture” across the world will soon all be connected, and the parks of the world will begin to fill with geeks for the first time in history.

Posted by Josh Hill.