Missed Connections.(Paris's wi-fi experiment)

Every home gadget in Paris could be part of an interactive "digital ecosystem." Telecommuting would ease the corporate real-state crunch. City buses would automatically alert regular passengers two minutes before arriving at their stop. International business would be drawn to the first fully Internet-connected global capital. Such dreams were in the air during a three-month summer test of free wireless Internet service in Paris, which set up 12 Wi-Fi hotspots in bus and Metro stations. Customers with Wi-Fi-capable devices could log on from anywhere within 150 meters of a Wi-Fi antenna. Some 1,700 people did so free of charge, and then the mirage of one giant Parisian hotspot was gone.

It won't return soon. This is France, which has a record of clinging to its own technology and missing the boat on the next wave. In 1991, France fell in love with the Bibop, a cheap, uniquely French mobile phone, and as a result was relatively slow to take up the modern cell phone. In 1983, France rolled out the Minitel, a gizmo that attached to the phone and allowed for online text searches, communication and purchases, but its domestic success became a serious drag on innovation. When the Internet began to catch fire in the early '90s, France stuck to the online device it knew, dropping protections for the Minitel only in 1998. Today France remains perhaps five years behind in the Internet revolution, and appears poised for a similarly delayed entry into the Wi-Fi age. "We sometimes have a hard time imagining that things can be done differently," says Philippe Montubert, founder of the Internet think tank Cyberple Lyon. "And when we invest a lot we don't want to say that we were mistaken. Abroad they call this 'arrogance.' I am French, so I won't say that." France already appears to have fallen behind the Wi-Fi leaders. The International Telecommunication Union's digital access index (measuring variables like education and affordability) says that France is on a par with Slovenia. Companies are in the process of planting Wi-Fi antennas around Europe, so an exact count is difficult, but a new Wi-Fi hotspot guide places France ninth in the world with just over 305 hotspots-- behind the U.K. (2,342), Germany (683), Sweden (435) and even tiny Austria (328).

France is an also-ran despite advantages that should put Paris in the Wi-Fi vanguard. Paris Metro tunnels are laced with fiber-optic cable, which can be hooked up to Wi-Fi antennas. The city is small--one third the size of London--with scores of subway stations snuggled close together; that solves one shortcoming of current Wi-Fi antennas: limited reach. The centralized French state also owns numerous buildings on which Wi-Fi antennas can be perched, eliminating the cost of renting space for them. Jean-Paul Figer, chief technology officer at Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, which put on the summer test with France's subway authority, says that a nearly continuous citywide hotspot might therefore cost as little as $10 million.

Yet, as of this summer, France had the most expensive one-hour access prices in Europe, according to a Broadgroup report. Even now, to log on through the increasing number of Wi-Fi antennas planted at Paris's Metro-station entrances, atop phone booths on the Champs-Elyses and in luxury hotels, people must fork out 4.30 euros for an hour or 7 euros for one day.

The reason for the high costs lies in France's centralized government and its relations to major telecom companies. Three French telecom companies--Orange (France Telecom), SFR (Vivendi) ...