Paris, the wireless wonder? Unplugged Net surfing all over town

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

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From: "Robert J. Berger" <rberger () ibd com>


Paris, the wireless wonder?
International Herald Tribune
Lee Dembart/IHT IHT
http://www.iht.com/articles/95233.html

Monday, May 5, 2003
In the cards: Unplugged Net surfing all over town
 
PARIS An experiment is under way in Paris that aims to turn the city into
one huge Wi-Fi hot spot, making it what could be the first large wireless
city in the world.

A dozen Wi-Fi antennas have been set up outside subway stations along a
major north-south bus route, providing Internet access to anyone near them
who has a laptop computer or personal desk assistant equipped to receive the
signals. The access is free until June 30 but will require paid
subscriptions afterward.

If all goes as planned, the private partners building the system expect to
make a decision before the end of the year to install at least two antennas,
and possibly three, outside each of Paris's 372 Metro stations and to link
them through an existing fiber optics network in the subway tunnels.

That would create one continuous network that would allow people to roam
seamlessly throughout the city while sending and receiving data over the
Internet. Individual subscribers to the service could sit in parks, cafés or
restaurants and sign on to check their e-mail or surf the Net. Businesses
could create so-called virtual private networks that would let them exchange
information with employees in the field or, for example, with delivery
trucks.

Wi-Fi, which is short for wireless fidelity, is essentially a low-power
radio signal with limited range that started as a hobbyist gadget three
years ago and is being ratcheted up by major companies that hope to turn it
into a profitable enterprise. But no one has yet come up with a surefire
plan to make that happen profitably.

The Paris project is being spearheaded by the technology consulting firm Cap
Gemini Ernst Young along with two partners, Cisco Systems, which is
supplying the antennas and access points, and the RATP, the agency that
operates the Paris Metro, which is providing the fiber-optics link that is
already in place in the subway tunnels. If the project proves successful, it
could help establish Wi-Fi's viability for other large installations around
the world.

"We can't think of another complete city that has deployed wireless access
throughout," said Ian Phillips, Cisco's manager of product marketing
mobility solutions in London. Cisco is involved in several other large Wi-Fi
projects around the world.

Under the best conditions, Wi-Fi signals can travel up to 100 meters (110
yards) or so, and while there are thousands of hot spots operating
throughout the world, they can be finicky, and moving from one to another
sometimes requires resetting things on the receiving laptop computer.

Getting wireless access to the Internet requires having a Wi-Fi-equipped
laptop or handheld computing device. Many new laptops come with Wi-Fi built
in, and older ones can be upgraded with a card that slips into the PCMCIA
slot. The cards typically cost under $100.

Computer manufacturers hope that Wi-Fi will be a "killer app" that motivates
consumers to buy new laptops.

"We believe that giving this connectivity will develop a lot of new
applications," said Jean-Paul Figer, Cap Gemini's chief technology officer.
"Trucks, buses, cars, the same application has much better value if you get
this kind of mobility. It's exactly like your TV remote control. It's only
three meters, but it changes your life."

The Paris project opened on April 1 with antennas outside a dozen Metro
stations generally following the route of Bus No. 38, which traverses Paris
from north to south. It's free until June 30, and anyone can sign up at
www.wixos.net. As of Sunday, 604 people had signed up.

"We did not advertise, so there are relatively few people," Figer said.

"The purpose of our pilot system is just to get feedback to be able to
understand exactly how people will use it," Figer said, adding that
adjustments would be made to accommodate users' experience and
recommendations.

Based on the results of the prototype experiment, he said, he expects the
partners to decide before the end of the year to go ahead with the full
installation, which Figer estimated will cost E3 million ($3.4 million) to
E10 million, "relatively small," he said.

"It can be done extremely fast because we already have the infrastructure,"
he said. "Then we'll be able to offer high-speed Internet access to people
in cars or buses or whatever. Sitting at a café or restaurant or in a park
you will have full access to the Internet.

"We don't know how people will use it," he said. "It's the same as 10 years
ago at the beginning of the Internet. The reason why we launched a huge
experiment is to get the feedback of our users, to ask them how it's
working, what do you need? And then we will see what kind of applications,
what kind of usage will be important."

The partnership, which is called Wixos, is building the system, but the
actual Internet connection will be provided by separate commercial
companies, of which eight have signed up so far, six of whom have agreed to
be identified: Bouygues Telecom, Club Internet, Tele2, TLC Mobile, Wifi Spot
and Wifix. They will set the rates for their users; Figer said that he hoped
competition among them would keep the price down. The individual operators
will pay Wixos for using the system, and none of them have yet said how much
they will charge users.

In the United States, Wi-Fi access charges for individuals have been $10 an
hour and up.

"It must be much cheaper," Figer said. "The business model of trying to sell
Wi-Fi to people at these huge costs will fail everywhere."

"It will be interesting to see competing business models," in Paris, he
said. But "we don't push a specific business model, he said. "Companies will
be able to do what they want."

Phillips of Cisco said that service providers will be able to provide
additional premium services on top of plain vanilla Internet access.

For example, he said, operators could offer businesses virtual private
networks, "which give you the ability to create a secure tunnel over the
public Internet into your corporate headquarters to download your corporate
information."

Here again, once the capability is available, no one can predict the uses
that individuals and businesses will find for it.

When cellular phones got going, Phillips said, "it was just voice. Then
things like text messaging came along, and now we're seeing picture
messaging. We're seeing data running over voice. There are different types
of services that we can bundle on top of an access technology."


--
Robert J. Berger - Internet Bandwidth Development, LLC.
Voice: 408-882-4755 eFax: +1-408-490-2868
http://www.ibd.com



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