Curated Spot Check: Paris, France

Posted on October 28, 2013

This Curated Spot Check takes us to Paris, one of the most stylish, celebrated, and influential capitals in the world. It features beauty, tradition, and lots of Parisians, business travelers, and tourists. It’s also a city with the most complex Wi-Fi environment we’ve encountered so far. Voilà. Some of our findings. Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom, and FreeWiFi have a lock on most of the Wi-Fi in Paris. If you are one of their customers—as many of the locals are—you are in relatively good shape. If you’re a tourist, you are in for a disappointing experience relative to other world-class capitals. It seems that Paris is stuck in an earlier decade when Internet access was only for those with a business affiliation. For tourists, the one saving grace is the large municipal network called Paris Wi-Fi. The Ville de Paris and the Île-de-France region offer this free Internet service in more than 250 public places. (We accessed this network while shooting the above video in front of the Eiffel Tower. During the shoot, we observed lots of people taking and uploading photos via their smartphones.) As long as it’s free of congestion, tourists can connect to Paris Wi-Fi and get online….