Originally Posted by
Tennisbum
I have absolutely no experience of this service or knowledge of it beyond what is posted on the website.
Here is a rough translation of this
Paris Portail page:
The Paris-Wifi Pass
The Paris Wif-Fi Pass is a new service established by the City of Paris and the Ile de France region. It allows you free wireless, high-speed internet connection. It is open to everyone: Parisiens, French residents and visitors to Paris.
To use it, go to one of the 260 municipal sites equipped with one or more Paris Wi-Fi Pass hotspots: park or garden, arrondissement headquarters, library or museum of the City of Paris.
How to connect with the Paris Wi-Fi Pass?
1. Locate the place bearing the logo Paris Wi-Fi. This indicates that you are in the area of a Paris Wi-Fi hotspot.
2. Turn on your Wi-Fi equipment.
3. Select the Orange network.
4. Launch your Internet browser as usual and type any website address (for example:
http://www.paris.fr).
5. Select your pass Paris wi-fi 2h offered by the mairie of Paris et the Region Ile de France.
6. After that you can surf for free on the internet, send and receive emails, etc., without needing to connect by other means!
Important reminders:
Attention! Remember to fully charge your batteries in advance: electricity is not furnished by the Pass Paris Wi-Fi.
The Pass Paris Wi-Fi is accessible during the open hours of the municipal sites so equipped. To find out the schedules of these sites, enquire at the reception desk of each of them. In order to facilitate the evacuation of these sites at closing time, please obey the instructions of the municipal employees.
I've used this service. It's better than nothing but has the following drawbacks:
-Slow connection
-data limitations
-no VOIP
I find that I can send only very short e-mails from within my mail client; I work around that by writing mails offline (downloading mail doesn't seem to be a problem) and pasting text into my web-based e-mail. Using Orange's paid WiFi it's possible to send longer mails from the client. When you go into the Orange site you are asked to choose your wifi access -- and you can choose to buy some number of hours of wifi, to be used within a certain amount of time. This is good in places that offer an Orange hot spot, like certain cafes and hotel lobbies. Obviously it's up to the hotel whether they permit non-guests to sit in the lobby to connect. Orange has a list of WiFi hotspots online.
The nominal maximum attachment is 20MB but I've had smaller files rejected for bandwidth overage.
The other problem is, when trying to access WiFi in city parks, finding just where the hot spot is. The Jardins de Trocadero are listed as a
point WiFI but I haven't yet been able to connect.
The one time I was able to log on in a park in the 13 arrondissement, on a Sunday in July. the WiFi connection was cut off at 7 pm.
I often use the WiFi in the lobby of one of the Mairies (district headquarters). It's fun to watch all the wedding parties come and go, especially on a Saturday morning. One of the lobby guards did mention that they were considering discontinuing the service.